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MUFFIE’S PROPHECY 

A PROPHETIC DRAMATIC POEM 



MUFFIE’S PROPHECY 


A PROPHETIC DRAMATIC POEM 


BY 

WILLIAM WALLACE MUFFIE / 




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NEW YORK 

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 

AMERICAN BRANCH : 35 West 32nd Street 
LONDON, TORONTO, MELBOURNE, AND BOMBAY 

1917 



Copyright, 1017 

BY 

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS f/ 

American Branch 



OEC 12 1917 ^ 


i 

THE QUINN St BODEN CO. PRE$P 

*«M>VAr, i, 



©Cl. A477978 


MUFFIE S PROPHECY 


PERSONS OF THE DRAMA 

MORTAL: 

Muffie 

IMMORTAL: 

Mephie 
The Finto 
Leora 



MUFFIE S PROPHECY 


CONCOURSE I 

SCENE: Muffie seated upon a bench on Morning side 
Heights in New York City . 

TIME: A bright spring evening . 

Muffie 

Upon this height in happy reverie 
I sit alone and view the surging throngs. 

The great full moon from her high starry dome 
Illumes the springtime beauty of the park, 

And, with a magic known to her alone, 

Works constant change in forms and colourings. 
Beneath my feet and spreading far away, 

The city lies, one blaze of light and glory: 

Above it speed the glowing railway trains, 

Winding along like monster fiery serpents, 

Chasing each other madly through the air. 

(Muffie’s attention is accidentally directed to an 
open pocketbook beside him on the bench; he takes it 
up and examines it.) 


[i] 


MUFFIE’S PROPHECY 


But what is this? A beautiful portemonnaie 
With plentiful supply of notes and gold. 

(Muffle counts the money, replaces it, and continues 
his examination of the pocketbook.) 

And here are private papers signed 6 O. Mephie,’ 
The owner’s name perhaps ; and here again 
A lady’s ring with jewels all aflame; 

That central ruby is a princely gem, 

The diamonds little less ; how small it is : 

The loser lives in affluence: even so 

Such great and precious loss is borne with pain. 

A rapid step; some person is ascending 
The granite stairway from the park below. 

(Muffle replaces the ring and puts the portemonnaie 
in his pocket. Mephie appears at the top of the stair- 
way and approaches Muffle.) 

Mephie 

Your pardon, Sir, for timeless interruption. 

I left my pocketbook upon that bench 
Some half an hour ago ; you may have seen it. 

Muffie 

If so, indeed, you carried it in hand: 

A lady’s way: few gentlemen do that. 

Mephie 

Quite reasonable, Sir, I had a ring 
A size too large: I feared the loss of it, 

[ 2 ] 


CONCOURSE I 


Took out my book and put the ring inside; 

And in abstraction, a great fault of mine, 

I left my portemonnaie upon the bench. 

Muffie 

What kind of a ring was yours? Be accurate. 
Mephie 

A chased gold ring of dainty workmanship, 

Set with a ruby circled by three diamonds. 

The ring was rather small, in weight and fashion 
More like a lady’s than a gentleman’s. 

The ruby was quite large and rich with facets ; 
The diamonds too were of the purest water. 

Muffie 

What money did you have in notes and gold? 
Mephie 

Ten thousand dollars in large treasury notes, 
And twenty sovereigns more in British gold. 

Muffie 

Describe the book and be particular. 

Mephie 

The body of it was embossed morocco ; 

The frame was gold with ornamental carvings; 
Upon the clasp the giver had engraved 
* O. Mephie ’ ; that is a pet name of mine. 

[ 3 ] 


MUFFIE’S PROPHECY 


Muffie 

I found a pocketbook upon this bench : 

You have described it and its contents well 

Except one thing : no name was on the clasp. 

(Mephie stands a moment as if in thought, then takes 
from his pocket a magnifying glass.) 

Mephie 

Here, Sir, take this. Examine carefully : 

If that name is not found upon the clasp 

I make no claim; the portemonnaie is yours. 

(Muffie steps aside and reads the name on the clasp; 
then, taking the ring from the pocketbook, he returns 
to Mephie.) 

Muffie 

Another proof : the last : try on the ring. 

(Mephie puts on the ring; and with a gentle move- 
ment it drops from his finger; he then returns it to 
Muffie, who puts it into the pocketbook which he re- 
stores to Mephie.) 

Muffie 

Accept it, Sir; and I rejoice with you 

Most heartily in its recovery. 

Mephie 

Name the reward and you shall have it, Sir. 

The money value of my pocketbook 

With all it holds to me is but a trifle. 

[ 4 ] 


CONCOURSE I 


Muffie 

I claim your friendship, Sir ; no more nor less. 
Mephie 

And that is yours : you have my love forever. 

(They clasp hands; and in that act Mephie reveals 
himself.) 

Muffie, my Bard : you see I know you well, 

By Heaven’s command I take a mortal friend, 

And fancy I have made no great mistake 
In choosing you; what say you to it, Muffie? 

Muffie 

My Guide, my Master and my Guardian Angel f 
Mephie 

All these indeed to you ; and you for me 
Will be a poet prophet to the world, 

By those who know me not and love me not 
I am called Mephistopheles the Wicked, 

By loved ones Mephistopheles the Good, 

Mephie or dear old Mephie if they please ; 

And as they know me you will find me ever, 

In joy or sorrow gentle, thoughtful, true. 

Why, think you, I have chosen you from all? 

Muffie 

I know not why; you have and I rejoice: 

It is my life, my sweet foretaste of heaven. 

[ 5 ] 


MUFFIE’S PROPHECY 


Mephie 

I tell you : I have always known you, Muffle, 

A lover true, a dreamer and a singer 
From early childhood, unrequited too 
Yet not embittered, never envious, 

But happy in the full reward of others: 

For these I love you much. A holy angel 
Made inquiry about my mortal friend; 

I answered: in the Emporium of the West, 

The Imperial Island City of the World, 

Dwells a true poet without fame or fortune, 

With little wisdom in the ways of men, 

Still less in ways of women; and, in brief, 

Of small account on earth: he is my choice. 

The angel said: these are his very words: 

Mephie, my dear, you might have done much 
worse : 

I know him well: fool and philosopher, 

Lowly and haughty, singing to himself, 

The livelong day for want of audience. 

Muffie 

But to myself no more: my cup is full: 

My time has come: angels will listen now. 

Mephie 

Softly, my Muffie: angels never heed 
The vapouring of pride: that is for men. 

The poets who gain audience in heaven, 

Their numbers soar aloft on wing sublime, 

[ 6 ] 


CONCOURSE I 


Instinct with melody, and holy fire, 

Replete with heart and soul : to such alone 
Acceptance comes above: and even these, 
Unless a guiding angel lead the way, 

Will strive in vain to rise above the earth. 

Muffie 

Your pardon, Master. I perceive my fault: 

I feel it too : your gentle reprimand 
Will need no repetition : yet perhaps 
The potent influence of supernal love 
Upon my spirit may not be in vain ; 

And though my numbers are unworthy heaven 
Some souls on earth may cherish them, and be 
The happier and better for my song. 

Mephie 

Right nobly spoken, Muffie: yet again, 

Why have I chosen you? I told you part 
But not the whole: your vision is not bounded 
By things material: it goes beyond 
The world of nature to the spirit world, 

And reads with larger, wiser faith than others 
The unfolding mysteries of eternity: 

Another reason too and not the least : 

No slave are you to grovelling lust of gain: 
There was my only doubt. While you supposed 
Yourself the judge and me the suppliant 
These was no secret purpose, no desire, 

No act of soul however slight or brief, 

m 


MUFFIE’S PROPHECY 


Of yours that could escape my scrutiny ; 

And all were true : you triumph in my love. 

Muffie 

Thank gracious Heaven no demoa tempted me l 
Mephie 

No demon comes unless you call him up. 

Muffie 

Had I belied your trust? had I been false? 
Mephie 

Ah, then, my Muffie, you had lost a treasure 
More precious far than pelf : you would have slept 
To wake, to look about and grieve in vain 
For vanished wealth, to wonder how procedure 
So relevant, so natural and clear 
To every sense could only be a dream: 

And brooding sad through long remorseful days 
And sleepless nights could but evolve belief : 

It was no dream ; it was reality : 

It was a test for some high consecration, 

Some prize miraculous and rich from Heaven 
That you had lost through vile cupidity. 

With all regret, no hope in life nor death, 

The dark foreboding years had borne you down 
With ever deepening sorrow to the grave. 

Muffie 

That could not be : Heaven would not have it so. 

[ 8 ] 


CONCOURSE I 


Mephie 

It must have been had you proved recreant. 

Now, Muffie, what to you portends my love? 

Muffie 

I cannot tell : whatever it presages 
Will be my hope, my happiness, my all. 

Mephie 

Well said, my Prophet true. My love betokens 
A life above the plane of sordid men, 

Their passions, purposes and low delights, 
Hypocrisy and guile: my love betokens 
Your call immediate and consecration 
As Poet Prophet of this later day 
Heaven’s messenger to earth: my choice is final, 
You know your duty and high destiny: 

That duty hard finds recompense divine 
In love celestial and high intercourse 
With heaven below unknown to other men. 

Muffie 

Dear, holy Master, what can Muffie do 
To merit such a call, such consecration? 

Mephie 

Nothing, my Prophet: from yourself to Heaven 
Can be no merit ; and from Heaven to you 
Can be no debt: what needs Omnipotence? 

Your highest worth is fitness to receive. 

As angels do, divine beneficence. 

[ 9 ] 


MUFFIE’S PROPHECY 


Muffie 

I know too well that in myself alone 
I am as nothing: yet as poet prophet 
Accredited I fondly hope my song 
May not be found unworthy of your trust, 

Nor die away upon the air unheard; 

I hope indeed as you may give me voice 
That men at last may listen to my numbers 
And heed my prophecies; that, in the end, 

My work for them all done, my spirit, freed 

From union with mortality, may hear 

Their prayers and blessings rise above my grave. 

Mephie 

Sublime in sentiment but false to fact. 

When, Muffie, have you mortals paid your prophets 
With honour and affection? Read the story. 

From dawn of time the anointed poet seers 
Have poured their spirits forth in sacrifice 
To sacred duty, all to find themselves 
Not loved, not praised, but execrated, cursed. 

Men have not changed: the same will be your fate. 

Muffie 

While you approve I welcome any doom. 

Mephie 

My Prophet true, whatever fate may come, 

What cruel fortune Earth may have in store, 

Will bring you rich reward, for spirits blessed 

[ 10 ] 


CONCOURSE I 


Will be the messengers from heaven to you; 

And ever in your darkest, saddest hours, 

Though you may see them not, be well assured 
They are about you still : they will not leave 
The Poet Seer to faint and die alone. 

Muffie 

It is enough. Support me in my trials 
For I am weak at best, that I may stand 
Secure and faithful to my ordination. 

Mephie 

You will not fail me: I made no mistake: 

Error is only mortal. Listen, Muffie : 

Know you are heaven’s appointed poet seer; 

And so your life itself must be a poem, 

Sublime, harmonious and beautiful 

In every part. Now, Muffie dear, good night: 

My love and blessing till we meet again. 

Muffie 

Good night, dear Master: love and sweet good night. 
(Mephie disappears. Song of spirits in the air.) 

Song 

(i) 

Hearken, Poet : take the treasures toward thee 
winging; 

Powers supernal in the pleasures of our singing, 

[ 11 ] 


MUFFIE’S PROPHECY 


While the conscious airs are sighing, 

The enchanted hills replying 

To the musick of our measures grandly ringing. 

( 2 ) 

There the sacred constellation just returning 
Will reward our expectation and our yearning: 
From her stars divinely glowing, 

Ever streaming, ever flowing, 

Come the holy inspiration and the burning. 

(Exit Muffle, ) 


[ 12 ] 


CONCOURSE II 


SCENE : Muflie standing in a wood near the Tappan 
Zee. 

TIME: A rainy spring evening. 

Muffie 

I am unworthy : rank impiety 
Transforms me utterly. And what am I 
That Heaven shouted: honour me above my kind? 
Nothing, mere nothing; yet I cannot bide 
The Will Supreme : my will must govern all. 

Bow, haughty spirit ! turn ! that way is death ! 

This way to hope and life ! O now I feel 
The sacred presence as I felt before, 

And nature’s witchery! In darkness here 
The finer, purer sense is clear, and free 
From all discordance of the visual world. 

The low soft music of the falling rain 
From leaf to leaf on these primeval oaks, 

And ever varying as the zephyrs play, 

Pervades my soul, enraptures me with sweetness: 

It is the night. Impenetrable Night, 

Queen Patroness of Poesy, you give 
Imagination wing! Imperial Night, 

Unseen upon your solitary throne, 

Unknown, unloved, save by the votaries 

[ 13 } 


MUFFIE’S PROPHECY 


Of song alone; your living harmonies, 

Your visionary stores : the beautiful, 

The gloomy and the grand, the terrible, 

The weird and the fantastically wild, 

All true to nature and the human heart, 

Are showered upon your loyal worshipers 
In rich munificence: and more than all 
To me you bring a hope : perhaps even now 
That hope may be fulfilled, and his dear voice 
May cheer my soul again! Can this be dawn? 

It is indeed, and I begin to see 

The spreading arms of these gigantic oaks, 

In shadowy sombre forms obscurely shown, 

Like gruesome ghosts above me. O too late! 

How quickly passed the night ; the morning grows : 
Hours fly like moments : in distracting hopes 
And fears I lose all consciousness of time. 

It is full day even now; all things are clear: 

The very birds on that decaying pine 
I plainly see: how strange, they are yet asleep. 

(The Finto appears at a short distance from Muflie 
among the trees.) 

But who is that? some early fisherman: 

He seems confused and comes to speak with me. 

The Finto 

Good morning, Sir, I am a stranger here. 

I lost my course in this deep tanglewood. 

Could you direct me to the Hudson River? 

[ 14 ] 


CONCOURSE II 


Muffie 

I can, Sir; and it will afford me pleasure 
To be your company upon the way. 

The Finto 

I gratefully accept: how far is it? 

Muffie 

A little walk, no more: the path is yonder. 

The Finto 
I am a wanderer: I feel indeed 
A spirit irresistible, some fate 
Impel me onward. With no guide nor friend. 
Except Old Nick and faithful Peter Pan 
And ever ready pistol, I have gone 
Through wilds unknown, and faced the hungry 
tiger 

And lion in their haunts : more dreadful still, 

The strangling snakes, pythons and boas huge, 

And others, watchful and insidious, 

Whose bite is death; and all was joy to me. 

Muffie 

Who were your friends, Old Nick and Peter Pan? 
The Finto 

A tame ichneumon pet was my Old Nick : 

No other name would suit his qualities, 

And Peter was a little terrier ; 

I think! he never slept: no creature ever 
[ 15 ] 


MUEEIE’S PROPHECY 


Escaped his vigilance. Old Nick, in truth, 

Was more than wonderful, so very small 
My pocket sheltered him; and yet no reptile, 
However powerful or venomous, 

Could conquer him ; and very few escaped ; 

You should have seen his exultation wild, 

His demon dance upon a writhing foe. 

He was protection from the only things 
I ever dreaded. As for beasts of prey, 

I have no fear of them. I call to mind 
The instance of a tigress with her cubs: 

The ground was open with no point of vantage 
Nor tree at hand: she came on rapidly 
Yet warily, her half-grown young behind. 

The Indian summer sun was in my face ; 

And I bethought me of a schoolboy prank: 

I took a pocket mirror in my hand, 

And flashed the blazing sunlight in her eyes: 
She veered a moment, saw her cubs, and then 
Faced me again: I threw another flash: 

She turned about completely, stood a moment. 
Then, howling, trotted off. I might go on 
With wild adventures, battles for my life. 
Escapes miraculous ; but that would savour 
Of vanity to you, a total stranger. 

Muffie 

No, no, my friend : your story is a poem 
Of wonder life in savage woods and jungles: 
Enough cannot be told while more remains. 
[ 16 ] 


CONCOURSE II 


The Finto 

Politely spoken ; but my chief delight 
Was not among the natives of the wild: 

Far up Andean, Himalayan heights 
I found a dearer pleasure: I have stood 
On Chimborazo’s top for hours to see 
The soaring condor circle round my head. 

But even there was not my greatest joy: 

Far nearer to my heart than all beside 
I hold the noble rivers in their vales. 

My days of early, happy manhood passed 
In dreams along the storied streams of eld ; 

Then farther still, from utmost Orient 

To Occident, wherever fancy led 

And mighty rivers rolled, I made my home : 

But one bright name as paragon of all 
Was borne upon the air in every breeze; 

And I have come from far-off eastern climes 
To see this glory of the western world. 

Muffie 

You see it now : there spreads the Tappan Zee. 
(Mephie appears standing near them on the shore.) 

The Finto 

Not half was told. There stands another stranger 
All rapped in admiration like myself. 

(Muffie rapidly approaches Mephie who embraces 
him affectionately.) 


[ 17 ] 


MUFFIE’S PROPHECY 


Muffie 

My Guardian Angel and my Master dear ! 
Mephie 

Yes, come again to my impatient child. 

Muffie 

No, not impatience but distrust of self, 

Still whispering that I should never more 
Behold the face nor hear the voice I loved. 

Mephie 

My Muffie, when I chose a mortal friend 
I chose forever: set your heart at rest; 

And know as well that many times I stand 
Beside my poet prophet undisclosed. 

Your comrade here, The Finto, and myself 
Were at your side when your impassioned muse 
Outdid herself in song to Empress Night: 

Your rapture pleased us well. The Finto, Muffie 
Like me has known you long and loves you dearly 
Hold him forever as a favoured friend. 

Muffie 

Another angel friend! My heart is full! 

But where are now Old Nick and Peter Pan, 

And all those fearful creatures of the waste? 

The Finto 

They charmed our journey to the Master here, 
My only purpose : yet the tale was true : 

[ 18 ] 


CONCOURSE II 


Not verbally indeed, but true to nature, 

In harmony with nature’s throbbing heart; 

And such is truth itself and poesy. 

Muffie 

I deeply feel it so. Your friends and foes 
Will ever live to me ; and all remains 
A glowing picture in my memory 
Undying and unchanging as our love. 

Mephie 

Well spoken, Muffie. Poesy is kin 
To the eternal melody that peals 
Through nature, heaven and the human soul; 
And those who clearly hear and render it 
With inspiration are the bards divine: 

Their measures rise to holy prophecy. 

My pleasure boat lies moored in yonder cave, 

The sail already spread: let us aboard, 

And as we float, while friendship heightens all, 
Enjoy the unrivalled beauties of the scene: 

First well from shore then slowly down the stream. 

Muffie 

How curious: it is full day, and yet 
The lights are burning upon either side, 

The boats are all aglow: what can it mean? 

Mephie 

It means that day has come to you alone: 

The sun still rides upon his eastward course 

[ 19 ] 


MUFFIE’ S PROPHECY 


Far westward from the nadir : you yourself 
A moment hence will greet your sombre queen. 

Muffie 

My light is fading slowly, rapidly : 

Now all is dark : a miracle is done ! 

Mephie 

Done for you, Muffie, for your happiness, 
Done in our love: then let no faithless doubt 
Assail your, spirit when a trial comes. 

Muffie 

All doubt is dead; anxiety is dead: 

My soul rests confident upon your love. 

Mephie 

There let it rest forever. Look above : 

The sullen pall is rifted from the sky: 

All heaven is radiant ; and the fleecy waves 
Are driven on before the western breeze 
In strange, ethereal, silver-tinted forms: 

A ceaseless change, a beauty still the same. 

The Finto 

It is not joy but ecstasy to gaze 
On that serene unfathomable deep, 

Lustrous with all its gems of molten gold, 
Past which the human spirit just perceives 
Her native realm of immortality. 

[ 20 ] 


CONCOURSE II 


Mephie 

Yes, Finto, it is rapture for the soul 
To leave the sordid nether world and soar 
Upon poetic wing among the stars; 

To revel there in beauty’s charm supreme, 
In all the majesty and mystery, 

In all divine effulgence which, like love, 
Pervades the empyreal infinite. 


Muffie 

Enchantment all. See where the rising moon 
Fires all the eastern bank between those hills: 
There glows her upper rim ; and higher yet ; 
And now she throws her gleaming purple bar 
From shore to shore across the Tappan Zee, 
The moon is up : the bar is growing faint 
And fainter still ; by nature’s sorcery 
It has transformed into the undermoon 
Among her stars lighting the under sky. 

It is a fairy scene ; and all the world 
Where man is not is beautiful and good; 

But he subverts the Sovereign Will and turns 
Earth’s fairest portions into solitudes. 


Mephie 

Man does great things, my Muffle, past a doubt; 
But he cannot subvert the Sovereign Will: 

Nay, stronger yet, no living soul can try. 

[ 21 ] 


MUFFIE’S PROPHECY 


Muffie 

But there are men whose hard rapacity 
And savage hate would make a demon blush: 
What right have they to mar this lovely world? 

Mephie 

Again the same idea as before, 

But clothed in different garb, more passionate. 
Man has the power divine to rise or fall 
By good or evil to his destiny : 

It is the touchstone of the human soul. 

Yet many falling souls appear to rise 
Upon perfidious wing: leave them to Heaven: 
Supernal justice holds the balance true, 

And never sleeps : no subterfuge avails : 

They build their dwelling in a desert place, 

Afar from love, afar from light and hope, 

To die in desolation and despair. 

Muffie 

But can it be? can the Omnipotent 
Still live and love and suffer them forever? 

Mephie 

He suffers all: enough for us to know: 

Enough for you, my Muffie, Charity 
Benignant, beautiful, daughter of Love, 

Angel of Mercy, Patroness of Earth, 

And heaven’s favorite, sweet Charity. 

[ 22 ] 


CONCOURSE II 


Muffie 

My love, my trust, my troth are hers forever ! 
The Finto 

Stout words ; and yet if Lady Charity 

Were now your plighted lover, liable 

To human ills and passions, she would feel 

More lonely than a solitary dove 

Ere time and frost have turned your maple leaves. 

Muffie 

No, Finto, no ; the poet’s heart is true. 

The Finto 

His heart is true: our love betokens that, 

And more, much more : a soul attuned for song, 
And radiant with light of prophecy. 

Mephie 

Our love must be the prophet’s only meed, 

His one defence : at war against the world 
He will not stand alone. Look toward the right : 
What mighty mountain walls confront the moon, 
Reflecting all their changing lights and shades, 
And all their varied grandeur in her beams. 

Muffie 

The vale descends in transformation wild 
And beautiful past these eternal heights. 

[ 23 ] 


/ 


MUFFIE’S PROPHECY 


The Finto 

What glare is that upon the southern skj? 
Muffie 

The city’s light: we see it faintly here; 

More clearly here ; and here in all its glory. 

Mephie 

Your pride is yonder, Muffie: am I right? 
Muffie 

Yes, truly so; and yet I can but feel 
In sober moments more of grief than pride. 

Mephie 

Why grieve? Your city stands alone, supreme. 
Muffie 

Supreme in wealth and all material things. 
Mephie 

But those are good: for man upon the earth 
Material blessing and rewards are good. 

Muffie 

But not alone. Man is not all for time: 

He owes himself to immortality. 

In that magnificent emporium 

Of wealth and vice how many pay the debt? 

Mephie 

True; yet among its denizens are men 
And women too of consecrated lives. 

[ 24 ] 


CONCOURSE II 


We ever find in mighty multitudes 
The good and evil joined in high degree: 

Look only toward the good and be the good: 
What more can angels do? As for the men 
Whose mad rapacity is unappeased 
By all your city’s wealth : they are the growth 
Of ignorance, venality and vice 
Where every human beast is autocrat, 

And bears the sceptre of imperial power. 

But let the greedy grovel : not for them 
We ride the waters of this glorious bay: 

We have a higher, holier purpose here : 

Our prophet has a prophet’s work tonight. 
Look, listen : tell us what you see and hear 
Of good or evil import to the world. 

Muffie 

I see a company of men and women. 

By execration and wild argument 

They assail all laws of man, all laws divine, 

All sacred things, and even Omnipotence, 

In cause of love and human liberty. 

Mephie 

Portentous omen, Muffie : be alert. 

Muffie 

A woman rises to profound applause : 

Brothers and sisters of our noble band, 

Our life must be a sacrifice to love : 

Not love of husband, wife, parent or child, 

[ 25 ] 


MUFFIE’S PROPHECY 


Nor any other selfish cruel love, 

But love of liberty, equality ; 

A love of man and woman everywhere ; 

A universal, all-pervading love. 

Why is the world a place of misery? 

The blight of cruel law is over all : 

We are enslaved, that is the reason why. 

King Mammon’s men heap treasures for themselves 
By plundering the rest: they call it gain 
And rightful profit : so indeed it is 
By laws of tyranny. What need of law? 

What need of wealth if love were all in all? 

What right have I to affluence while my brother 
Wears out a life of hopeless penury 
In unremitting, all-degrading toil? 

The day is due: the day is coming fast 
When all the favorites of wealth and power 
Will feel that we can hate as well as love: 

When that day comes, and I may live to see it, 

We will dethrone their king omnipotent, 

Destroy his priests and all the vampires too 
That suck the toilers’ blood : then will the world 
Be fairer, happier than their fabled heaven ! 

She seats herself : a man is next to rise : 

My cherished Friends, Sisters and Brothers true. 
In all essential principles and aims 
We are the same: we all hate equally 
The powers of superstition, wealth and law; 

And all the selfish, cruel family ties 
Indissolubly bound in league with them: 

[ 26 ] 


CONCOURSE II 


We hate the toil, the misery, and crime 
That spring from them : the least is odious : 
Rut brotherly equality and love, 

And their two children, peace and happiness, 
Are dear to us : these are our principles : 

But when we go beyond and ask ourselves 
The way to crush those giant tyrannies, 
Then answers will be various, and few 
Appropriate and sure. One thing is clear: 
The Brotherhood must act in harmony: 

No disunited forces can prevail 
Against united foes: remember too, 

Armies and navies are oppression’s tools: 
Oppose them everywhere. The patriot’s cry 
Is but the refuse from a barbarous age. 

We have no country and no countrymen 
Except the Brotherhood: we stand alone, 
Our light must shine on all, especially 
Upon all youth; and more especially 
Upon the youth of poverty and want. 

In early years the mind receives and holds 
With readiness and pertinacity: 

Impress it then with love of liberty 
And hate of tyranny: it never changes. 

Each one of us is freedom’s messenger. 
Disseminate the truth and sow good seed 
At every turn of opportunity: 

That is our duty now ; and all as one, 

Tireless and vigilant we must go on 
With secret circumspection to our end. 

[ 27 ] 


MUFFIE’S PROPHECY 


The poor will see their rights and wrongs at last : 
That is the time: Our time has come to strike. 
Oppression’s myrmidons will not submit 
Without a deadly conflict : that is plain : 

Be theirs the consequence. The tyrant’s blood 
Is welcome sacrifice to liberty ! 

He sits : an old man rises in his place : 

Sisters and Brothers in fraternity, 

Each comrade works in his peculiar way 
For love and liberty : my way is death. 

The primal socialist: death equals all. 

No pride of wealth and power infests the grave: 
Men are all brothers, women sisters there. 

Above all else the never sleeping dread 
Of retribution is a moral force: 

It gives our rulers an abiding sense 
Of their mortality and brotherhood, 

Could I prevent it not a man in power 
Would live to see another rising sun. 

The tyrant’s hand is on us day and night : 

But love will rule at last and rule forever 
When all oppression, toil and penury 
Are washed from Earth in blood. My way 
death! 

The old man seats himself ; a woman rises. 
Mephie 

It is enough : now learn the dark portent : 

In all those tones you heard a single voice; 

In all those passions ruled one sombre spirit 

[ 28 ] 


CONCOURSE II 


With baleful aim : the Demon of Destruction, 
Malign and sinister engendered all. 

Muffie 

But Heaven will avert the blight he sends. 

Mephie 

And Heaven alone can do it. Know that toil, 

Toil patient, arduous, continuous, 

Is price of every good ; that human souls 
Can only rise upon laborious wing, 

That souls at ease in idleness must fall, 

That heaven itself is labour. Close your eyes. 

(Muffie closes his eyes.) 

The scene has changed : his ominous words are deeds. 
Look well about : note all you see and hear. 

(Muffie opens his eyes and looks about.) 
Muffie 

The sun shines brightly in the eastern sky; 

Soft breezes fan our sails, but all is gloom. 

These glancing waters lost among their isles, 

Where erstwhile rode the navies of the world, 

Are all uncumbered now, all desolate 
Save where some lofty, solitary mast, 

Above the surface points to wreck below. 

But here alone is death: in every part 
The city throbs with ardent life and passion. 

[ 29 ] 


MUFFIE’S PROPHECY 


Throughout the length of all her populous ways 
Wild men and frenzied women press along 
In ever changing, intermingling throngs : 

Eager, tumultuous, the surging hordes 
Of mad humanity press on and on. 

Aloft above the high cloud-piercing domes, 

On wide extended, animated wings, 

Airships are circling gracefully and slow: 

Upon all groups of proud commercial piles, 
Upon all structures consecrate to Heaven, 

To nature, beauty, truth and poesy, 

To wisdom, justice and humanity, 

To treasures of the ages gathered up, 

The circling vessels from above look down 
Like guardian angels on their holy work. 

In every edifice below the ships 
Lie captives bound: men, women, children, all 
Bound cruelly together; and without 
Collect the multitudes: and still they come; 

And still their passions and the tumult grow. 
Cheering and malediction strike my ear 
In harrowing unison. From every side 
Mad declarations, execrations fierce, 

Hopes, loves and hates are borne upon the air, 
Their god is dead, rings out a woman’s voice, 
And they shall follow him! All yet alive 
Both old and young shall follow him to death ! 
They are contamination! they must die! 

And thence away another voice resounds: 

King Mammon’s rule is past: he is no more: 

[ 30 ] 


CONCOURSE II 


Of all his followers and favorites 
A few remain to glorify this day: 

Their time has come : not one shall see tomorrow : 
Their life would blight ours. Tyranny is dead ! 
Love, trust, benignity and happiness 
Rule every heart ! King Mammon is no more ! 
The routs look up ; and suddenly I see 
A great white banner given to the breeze 
On all the ships above: On every one 
I read the motto in gilt characters: 

Love, Liberty, Equality and Peace, 

With Happiness for All. At sight of this 
Loud cheers ring out from all the myriads there, 
Continuous and rising till the sky 
Itself reverberates; then silence deep 
Throughout the city. Now a ship propels 
A purple fireball on the pile below: 

One echoing roar, and that great structure lies 
A shapeless mass. Faster than I can note 
The fireballs dart, the thunder blasts resound, 
The structures crumble on their prisoners: 

And still no end. Its deadly work well done, 
Each vessel is brought down from upper air 
And left beside a ruin. Fires break out: 

The frantic men and women spread the flames 
While all continuous thunders rend the air; 

And as the towers transcendent crash to earth 
The very waters tremble under us. 

An airship circling right before our boat 
Sends down its blazing messenger of doom 
[ 31 ] 


MUFFLE’S PROPHECY 


Upon a pile built for eternity, 

And one re-echoing tremendous blast 
Benumbs me : that proud structure is no more ; 

And all its mighty skeleton of steel, 

Distorted, shivered in unnumbered parts, 

Lies piecemeal, like the rest, above the dead. 

The incessant roar recedes on every side 
Fast followed by the flames. Impetuous throngs, 
Transported by demoniac delight, 

Are feeding still the wide extending fires : 

High voices too, almost as terrible, 

Resound in concert with the thunder roll: 

The war is done ! the victory is won ! 

Our blood is on their heads and they shall die ! 
They killed the Brotherhood ! Revenge is ours ! 
The world is ours for love and liberty ! 

More faintly now the multitudes appear; 

And still more faintly, all like shadowy forms 
Around the flames: the fires themselves grow dim. 
The sun is lost behind the deadly pall. 

Now earth herself is rent: in every part 
On land and water lurid flames burst forth, 

Quick flashing through the darkness, and our boat 
Seems helpless, tossed upon the heaving waves. 
Those flames are dead and all is dark again: 

No sense of aught but clamours far and near, 

The quaking and the unbroken roll of death! 

My spirit faints: sleep overpowers me. 


(Muffle sleeps.) 

[ 32 ] 


CONCOURSE II 


Mephie 

Rouse, Muffle, Prophet: there is more to come. 
(Muffle wakes.) 

Muffie 

I never heard one solitary moan! 

Mephie 

All that was long ago : the world has changed, 

And man has changed since then. What see you, 
Muffie? 

Muffie 

I see a dismal ruin everywhere, 

Like the great city: is it possible? 

Has all her wealth and glory come to this? 

Mephie 

Yes, Muffie; see: our mooring is unchanged: 

That dismal ruin is your Island Queen: 

But she is not alone: on all your land, 

In both Americas save far away 

Among the tribes of north and south extremes, 

And in the west where Asia dominates, 

The curse of desolation is the same. 

Note everything, hold it in memory 
For Heaven will require it all from you. 

Muffie 

Where towers majestic stood in lofty pride 
I only see the gloomy heaps of death 
And crumbling walls where things repulsive dwell 
[ 33 ] 


MUFFIE’S PROPHECY 


In loathsome intercourse. Her thoroughfares 
That overflowed with life and solitudes, 

And ravines mark her subterranean ways. 

Large trees have grown : the city is a wild : 

No mortal life except strangfe men and women 
Helving among the ruins earnestly: 

Their simple dress is coarse white woollen stuff : 
Jacket and overalls and sheepskin shoes, 

The wool side in, complete the garb for both. 

The men have full long beard and flowing hair, 
Thrown back with various feather ornaments : 
The women’s hair, cut short, is unadorned. 

A large crossbow with complement of arrows 
Is borne upon the back by all alike: 

Their rich rewards are stored in little boats 
Moored safe along the shore. We are moving off : 
The scene is changed: the ruins fade away. 

Mephie 

Yes, we are leaving them : let nothing pass. 
Muffie 

A few small boats are gliding up or down. 

On either side I see a forest deep. 

At various intervals by living water 
Are open fields with structures built of logs 
Where desperate souls with simple arms combine 
To battle primal nature and her brood 
Of savage beasts for life and livelihood. 

All signs of human life are near the river: 

The unbroken, dismal forest lies beyond. 

[ 34 ] 


CONCOURSE II 


Mephie 

Our boat will rest awhile : note carefully. 

Muffie 

In open fields upon a rivulet 
I see two strong log buildings like the rest : 

One ruder and much larger than the other : 

Between the buildings and the river side 
A woman cultivates a field of maize: 

Nearer the river is a half-grown boy 
With hounds and shepherds herding animals. 
Beyond the buildings at the forest edge 
A mounted man appears with pack of hounds : 

Upon his back a large crossbow and quiver; 

On his left side, from his right shoulder slung, 

Is a long spear with iron dagger point: 

His bearing proud, alert, and firm hard face, 
Bespeak a man prepared to grapple death; 

He looks about upon his wife and son, 

And on the strong log cabin nearer by 

That holds a daughter with three smaller children, 

And two great mastiffs, his most precious wealth ; 

He then peers earnestly into the forest 

And gives the word : his hounds have disappeared : 

Their deep long calls recede on every side; 

And while he listens it is plain he knows 
The different meanings of their various bays. 
Facing the wild with eye and ear intent, 

Without a motion and without a sound, 

He sits for moments ; then his loud shrill cry 

[ 35 ] 


MUFFIE’S PROPHECY 


Reaches the river side. On ready steeds, 

With their good bows and quivers, mother and son 
Ride to the fold and climb two hickories. 

The man himself with shepherd dogs and hounds 
Drives on his animals relentlessly. 

The wiser horses know their danger well, 

And guide themselves to safety with all speed ; 

The silly flock is far more difficult, 

And moves reluctant. In the forest far 
Wild howls reverberate. The hounds appear 
And bound off swiftly: at their master’s side 
They join the shepherds, and the wayward flock 
Is moving faster. Nearer than before 
The howls are echoing: nearer, louder yet 
They rise and fall in horrid unison. 

A wolf comes out upon the forest skirt 
Followed by five or six; and then by scores; 

And then by hundreds they are gathering, 

And howling as they gather and advance 
Upon their scented prey, fast reinforced 
By those behind : and still the woods resound. 

The flock begins to see its danger now, 

And moves on willingly, almost too late: 

The hungry beasts press on: the woman’s bow 
Restrains the leaders for a single moment: 

That precious moment sees the flock in fold, 

Fast followed by the shepherds and the hounds. 
With one quick motion the strong door is closed, 
And all are safe, — all but the horse and rider. 
The wolves are close upon their prey. The man 
[ 36 ] 


CONCOURSE II 


Has but a single hope : to reach an oak 

Two leaps in front with branches near the ground: 

The first is quickly made; but after that 

The fight for life is desperate and slow: 

Surrounded all by savage enemies, 

Further advancement seems impossible. 

Torn, bleeding from all parts but unsubdued, 

The horse yet struggles : upright on his back 
The man deals death among the furious brutes: 

The woman’s bow too loosens many a hold. 

From lightning thrusts in front the wolves at length 
Give way a little; and one effort more, 

The noble, faithful animal’s last, succeeds: 

Before he falls the man has grasped a bough 
And drawn himself to safety in the tree 
With all his armament. The horse below 
Is brought to earth among his ravenous foes 
While hundreds more flock in to join the feast 
At every moment ; but the woods are still. 

The horse is covered by the raging pack 
Deep over him that tear his quivering flesh, 

And tear each other in their furious greed. 

Now from the house, in answer to the wolves, 

I hear the deep low growling of the mastiffs, 

Slow pacing round. Safe on his bough the man, 
Wielding the spear, exacts a savage life 
At every instant; and so rapidly 
The dripping weapon flashes in the sun 
I hardly follow it; and yet the wolves 
Perceive no danger and heed not their foe: 

[ 37 ] 


MUFFIE’S PROPHECY 


But while they gorge the fatal work goes on, 

The heaps of death increase. As numbers dwindle 
The cruel cowards feel their punishment, 

And circle round with howls of rage and fear: 
Some slowly steal away. The spear slung back, 
With certain aim the crossbow takes its place 
Till but a solitary shaft remains : 

A single shaft is kept in every quiver 
For dire necessity. Of all the pack 
Only a score are left. The man now calls : 

Let Lion out, Noree, let Terron out: 

And out they bound and straight among the wolves 
With strength and courage irresistible 
They throw their enemies to left and right. 
Dispirited and silent now the wolvec 
Are driven toward the forest in retreat: 

But danger still assails, for while they go 
A panther clears the wood: large, terrible, 

And lithe and beautiful as terrible, 

Right on he leaps : his eye is on the boy. 

With one great bound he darts far up the tree 
And crouches back before the fatal spring. 

By terror overcome the boy shoots wild, 

The crossbow dropping from his trembling hand: 
He almost falls : but mother’s eye is there : 

Her solitary iron-pointed shaft 

Goes quivering through the vitals of the beast. 

His thirst for human blood quenched in his own, 
The stricken creature rapidly descends: 

He trots off slowly, gnashing at the shaft 

[ 38 ] 


CONCOURSE II 


Until he falls : he rises, gnashing still, 

And staggers on; then falls to rise no more. 

The father, mother and son are on the ground ; 
But she whose nerves erstwhile were steel refined 
Now totters while she walks. We move again. 
The battle scene is passed. Upon the left 
Are open fields with buildings tenantless: 

No sign of life except a prowling bear: 

Those fade away ; and here the shore recedes 
On either side, while far apart I see 
The lonely homes of hardy foresters. 

Mephie 

We rest again. Look down into the water 
And read the holy secrets of the deep. 

(Muffle looks into the water.) 

Muffie 

Daylight has faded, and the under sky 
Is radiant with under moon and stars. 

(Muffie looks upward and about.) 

Above, about, appear in all their glory 
The effulgent heavens and the Tappan Zee. 

Mephie 

Right nobly done : my every hope fulfilled. 

I greet you and commend you heartily. 

Think not my love subjected you to see 

[ 39 ] 


MUFFIE’S PROPHECY 


The terrors of Destruction and her child, 

Gaunt Desolation, horrid as they are, 

Without high purpose, great necessity: 

But much remains : what you have seen and heard 
And clearly told to us you must repeat 
To all the world: mortals perchance will heed 
And so escape: if not, your part is done. 

Muffie 

My Master dear, what you have shown to me 
The world shall have from me, and vividly 
As with your aid I can embody it. 

Mephie 

Well said, my Prophet. Finto, if you please, 
Dismiss high thoughts of mortal destiny, 

And crown this beauty with the charm of song. 

The Finto 
(Singing.) 

(1 ) 

Now the moon is riding high, 

And the zephyrs faintly sigh 

In her maiden light so pure and free; 

And our hearts and drawing nigh 

In a love that cannot die 

As we float upon the Tappan Zee. 

( 2 ) 

All the skies above us beam; 

All the mirrored mountains gleam ; 

[ 40 ] 


CONCOURSE II 


All the glowing waters dance in glee; 

And its beauties ever seem 

Only heaven in a dream 

While we float upon the Tappan Zee. 

( 3 ) 

O the all-enchanting might ! 

It is glory rare and bright 

Where no thought of darksome earth can be. 

In the far celestial light 

We will dwell upon the night 

When we floated on the Tappan Zee. 

Muffie 

Finto, the sense of terror is no more: 

Sweet calm and happiness pervade my soul. 

Mephie 

Our sail is over. Let us all to shore. 

Muffie, my Poet Prophet, kind farewell. 

Our love and all this lovely scene will be 
A fond remembrance till we meet again. 

The Finto 

Farewell, dear Muffie: you are ever near. 

Mephie 

Dear Master, Finto dear, farewell, farewell ! 

(They go to shore. Mephie and The Finto dis- 
appear. Exit Muffie.) 


[ 41 ] 


CONCOURSE III 


SCENE: Olin’s Vale. A clear brook runs down the 
centre from north to south. On either side the hill 
is covered with magnolias , live oaks , elms , hickories , 
hollies , vines and wild flowers. Mufpie is slowly 
sauntering up the valley and enjoying its beauties. 
TIME: A beautiful summer morning. 

Muffie 

Alone with beauty : not a sight nor sound 
Incongruous breaks the charm. These drooping elms 
And live oaks draped in waving silvery moss, 

These rich magnolias, lofty hickories, 

These lowly hollies clothed in lustrous green, 

This varied carpeting of blooms and vines, 

This clear stream, winding round its roots and rocks 
In pebbled rippling shoals or eddying deeps, 

All form a scene to soothe the troubled heart 
And captivate the soul. How like a vision 
This tiny bird darts round from flower to flower 
And feeds upon the wing: and such a wing, 

In lightning play all imperceptible : 

Now, like a very bullet in the air, 

Beyond the power of sight he shoots away. 

(Leora appears at a little distance above Muffie, 
looking up the stream.) 


[ 42 ] 


CONCOURSE III 


But who is this companion of my pleasure? 

A woman formed in woman’s loveliness ; 

Her face away : she seems enrapt, and heeds 
Naught but the nature she is worshiping: 

Her waving auburn hair, with ribbon bound 
But scarce confined, half circles all her waist. 

She turns about and yet I am unseen: 

The birds and flowers are all in all to her, 

And she to me is radiance of heaven. 

The graceful dome, half shown and half concealed ; 
The large dark eyes whence all her soul beams forth 
Her cheek of olive with its crimson blended, 

Changes with every change of thought and feeling. 
Under its porch of delicate sensuous beauty 
Her exquisite, full, double arched upper lip, 

Fits like the petal of a budding rose 
Upon the sweetly pouting nether twin. 

She sees me now and looks inquiringly 

Leora 

Is this the poet, William Wallace Muffle? 

Muffie 

Yes, Madam, I am William Wallace Muffle. 

Leora 

Two valued friends of ours were passing by. 

And saw you walking in the vale below. 

Muffie 

Two friends of mine? and 3^et I never saw them. 

[ 43 ] 


MUFFIE’S PROPHECY 


Leora 

Your eye was on a humming bird just then. 

Muffie 

Ah, that explains : while he was playing there 

The world was blank to me. Where are our friends? 

Leora 

Under the oaks above the waterfall : 

They wait me there. If I should come alone 
It would be great displeasure to them both. 

Muffie 

Then I will follow; but were you of earth 
Or I of heaven you should not go alone. 

Leora 

There glowed the poet. We will go together. 
Muffie 

I cannot thank you ; your sweet gracious words 
Beggar all merit and all thanks of mine. 

Leora 

I need no thanks : I am the poet’s friend. 

Muffie 

So great a prize for me? Can it be true? 

Leora 

It is indeed: our friends have told me all: 

And who more worthy friendship than the poet, 
[ 44 ] 


CONCOURSE III 


Although it rarely ever comes to him? 

The oaks are near : there rolls the waterfall ; 

But I could linger hours along this brook 
Nor lose one moment. See those graceful elms, 
Half hidden by their pendent mossy veils ; 

And there, again, your sweetheart and my own, 
Dear little fairy of the feathered world, 
Careers among the flowers in all his glory : 

It seems to me the very fairest flowers 
Bow low in reverence to his sovereign beauty, 
The while resounds his low, sweet monotone, 
The soothing drone of wings invisible. 

Now there he lights upon the honeysuckle; 
That slender, waving honeysuckle spray ; 

How gracefully he swings before the breeze 
While every colour rich and luminous 
Blazes upon his iridescent coat. 

Again upon the wing among the flowers, 

Before a favourite, the lowly phlox : 

There like a spirit vanishes. Farewell! 
Supernal beauty on the earth, farewell ! 

Muffie 

He may return : he will : they always do. 

Leora 

We dare not tarry. What rare music swells 
From that lone hickory below the fall. 

The prince of feathered songsters, hidden there. 
In notes ethereal, all vanquishing, 

W 


MUFFIE’S PROPHECY 


Proclaims defiance to the woodland world; 

And here another takes the challenge up 
In this magnolia, holding doubtful too 
On even poise the high supremacy, 

While ever-changing marvellous melody 
Charms the live air and overflows the vale. 

This brook is dear to me : the native home 
Of song and beauty is a holy place. 

Here is the fall. Now up this valley side; 

There are the oaks, and there our friends await us. 

(Mephie and The Finto are seen standing in a small 
grove of live oaks above the fall: Muffle and Leora join 
them: they greet Muffle affectionately.) 

Mephie 

This is Leora, Muffle: hold her dear 
For she has loved the poet long and well. 

Muffie 

I knew she could not be a mortal maid: 

She has too much of heaven : my heart is hers. 

The Finto 

Alas, alas, poor Lady Charity! 

Leora 

No tears for Madam Charity, my Finto: 

She needs no sympathy : it is her nature, 

Her special privilege, her very life 
To pour a soothing balm in every wound 
Without reward, without even gratitude. 

[ 46 ] 


CONCOURSE III 


The Finto 

And ever, too, almost a hopeless task, 

With ardent ingenuity she strives 
To infuse her spirit in the human soul. 

Muffie 

Mammon rules there supreme while Charity, 
Like some obtrusive suppliant for alms, 
Unknown, distrusted, gets a cold rebuff. 

The Finto 

Not Mammon only: other demons joined 
In friendly rivalry hold hideous riot. 

Muffie 

What desecration of her holiness ! 

Mephie 

She calls them in else Heaven would not permit 
But think not, Muffie, that a soul debauched 
Defeats the Sovereign Will: she sells indeed 
Her high celestial birthright for a mess 
Of deadly pottage here; and, like the fruit 
Blighted in bloom, falls withering to earth. 
Have no disturbing doubt: Omnipotence 
Rules all, guides all throughout infinity 
And all eternity; by finite minds 
Inscrutable and inexpressible, 

Save as the Father’s love reveals itself. 

His filial spirits in all times and climes 
[ 47 ] 


MUFFIE’S PROPHECY 


Have cherished and returned that love supreme: 
Their names are stars in heaven’s bright firmament: 
Prophets and poets, all who loved and gave 
Their life to man and immortality. 

Muffie 

In all that infinite of light and glory 

The brightest star is named for Avon’s Bard. 

(Mephie walks up the vale and disappears.) 

The Finto 

That name and fame are mythical, my Muffie 
Lord Francis Bacon was the real poet, 

The true creator of Macbeth and Lear. 

Muffie 

Ah, Finto, Finto, it is all too late 

To wrench the laurel crown from Shakespeare’s brow; 

He did the work as he alone could do it, 

And won his immortality too well. 

The Finto 

As you suppose ; but in the cause of truth 
Put by all prejudice for just one moment, 

And let us reason soberly together. 

Compare the men. We see in Francis Bacon 
The very man whom all the world would honour 
As true and sole creator of those dramas 
Had they come nameless from his age to yours. 

In time of good Queen Bess and Scottish James 

[ 48 ] 


CONCOURSE III 


The playwright’s office laboured under ban: 

It would have blighted Bacon’s fondest hopes; 
And hence he chose an actor manager 
To stand as author of his noble works 
And put them on the stage : give me one reason, 
If one you have, why this may not be true : 

Nay, stronger, why it is not probable. 

Muffie 

No, Finto, Avon’s Bard, not Francis Bacon, 

Is our immortal poet dramatist. 

The Finto 

That answer is the reason of a woman, 

Not a philosopher as Muffle is. 

Leora 

I have a reason pertinent, sufficient, 

Though Muffle and yourself may both dislike it, 
To prove that Francis Bacon neither did 
Nor ever could achieve our Shakespeare’s work. 

The Finto 

Shoot quick: expectancy is on the wing. 

Leora 

Lord Bacon was not mean enough by half. 

The Finto 

What, what, Leora, not half mean enough? 

[ 49 ] 


MUFFIE’S PROPHECY 


Leora 

Precisely so, and not half bad enough : 

He could not give what he did not possess: 

Nothing from nothing, Finto, as you know. 

The Finto 

Leora, that is worse than Muffle’s reason, 

It is the very bedlam of a reason. 

The great creations of the poet’s mind 
Are far above himself, beside himself. 

Leora 

Finto, there is a modicum of truth, 

No more, in what you say. Fecundity 
And not creative genius is the gift 
Which consecrates the poet for his work. 

The procreative spirit of poesy 
Hovers the poet with celestial power, 

Life-giving power: then inspiration reigns; 

And from his spirit issuing are born 
Immortal offspring to enchant the world. 

I speak of that diviner poesy 

Which thrills from heart to heart, from soul to soul, 
And peals from earth to heaven. The progeny 
Are living semblance of the parent spirit, 

For like from like is lasting ordinance: 

Alike and yet in strange variety. 

Lord Francis Bacon is a thing of earth: 

He never soars: the procreative spirit 
Never wooed his, not for a single moment ; 

[ 50 ] 


CONCOURSE III 


Not even by the flashing of a glance: 

But if he had, as I have said before, 

The jurist was not bad enough: his soul 
Could never bear for us the two Macbeths, 

Don John, Iago, Edmund, Goneril, 

And more in glorious odium with them, 

The full blown roses of iniquity, 

That bloom perennial in Shakespeare’s garden. 
Compared with those your marvel so renowned 
For infamous perversion of the laws, 

His craven cringe in Lady Hatton’s case, 

And all his peculations and his bribes, 

Dwindles to plain respectability. 

Muffie 

But that defames the myriad-minded bard. 

Leora 

No, Muffle; you are wrong: twice wrong, indeed 
The Bard of Avon was not myriad-minded, 

And he is not defamed : his single mind, 

Bright as the sunbeams in its lightning play, 
Illuminates this lower world of yours, 

And almost reaches heaven. His faculties, 

His clear perception and imagination, 

Are but the servants of his inspiration, 
Attending maidens that obey her will. 

But if our poet had unnumbered minds, 

And every mind an angel’s, even then 

Could all with all their powers create a Regan : 

[ 51 ] 


MUFFIE’S PROPHECY 


Create a very Regan as she is, 

Alive and flushed with all her deviltry? 

Failure complete and ignominious 

Had crowned the hopeless effort: she was born, 

Heart of his heart and spirit of his spirit; 

And so she lives forever in our hate. 

But rest assured whatever we may feel 
Of love, hate, pity, sympathy or mirth, 

Each true-born child of his received from him 
The full outpourings of parental love. 

The quality most strange in Avon’s Bard 
Is not his mind, imagination’s world, 

Nor even his inspiration all divine: 

The multifarious nature of our poet 
Makes him the greatest human miracle; 
Thence comes a progeny so various 
In all the qualities of good and evil; 

And all so full of real life, and all 
Identical with nature’s very self. 

The Finto 

Resolve us, dear Leora, if you please, 

What part of Shakespeare’s nature was infused 
Into his wild repulsive Caliban. 

Leora 

A clever pass, my Finto : I commend you, 

In Caliban we see your grain of truth : 

Like others who subserve a passing purpose 
He is a creature of the imagination ; 

[ 52 ] 


CONCOURSE III 


He is a pure creation, not a birth: 

But yet in him the poet shows himself, 

His inmost feelings, rarest thing of all: 

He execrates a vice predominant, 

Nor ever slips an opportunity 
To show it true and make it odious; 

And in the son of Madam Sycorax 
He deals the hated vice a deadly thrust. 

Muefie 

It is too strange and wonderful for truth. 

Leora 

What is most wonderful remains untold: 

His spirit has all delicate qualities 
Of woman’s too ; and hence we ever find 
That his are nature’s women, every one, 

Not men trapped off in feminine attire: 

Even that detested creature, Cloten’s mother, 
Like Imogen, the angel at her side, 

Is woman first and last in thought and feeling. 

Muffie 

I cannot answer yet cannot believe. 

Leora 

Muffie, why not believe? Among the great 
The very greatest are our poet’s peers 
For inspiration and imagination; 

But in the power occult, miraculous, 

That peoples earth with living men and women 

[ 53 ] 


MUFFIE’S PROPHECY 


How circumscribed they are: he stands alone, 

And seems like nature all unlimited. 

Why not believe? Doubt were credulity. 

Muffie 

I do believe: doubt is impossible. 

Leora 

At last, dear Muffie. What say you, my Finto? 
The Finto 

Muffie has answered you. In argument 
I never could maintain my cause against you. 

Leora 

And, Finto mine, be sure you never will. 

Muffie 

Where is the master? Will he come again? 

The Finto 

Yes, certainly: he never leaves a friend 
Without farewell. He has a work to do: 

His prophet will be weary when we part. 

(Mephie appears, walking down the vale with a 
strange spirit in feminine attire at his side. As they 
draw near, The Finto and Leora salute her. She fixes 
her eyes upon Muffie with an expression of deep affec- 
tion and sadness.) 


[ 54 ] 


CONCOURSE III 


Mephie 

She loves you, Muffle, with celestial love: 
It is Unone : have you ever seen her? 

Muffie 

I never saw that sweet, sad face before. 


Mephie 

Never before? Are you quite certain, Muffie? 


Muffie 

Yes, I am very sure : that countenance, 

Those lustrous eyes whence inspiration beams, 
If ever seen could never be forgotten. 


Mephie 

And yet they are forgotten: many a time 
Your head has lain upon her loving breast 
While tears and kisses mingled on your cheek. 
Beyond all mortal poets of today 
We love you, Muffie; but take this from me: 

The dower divine that you received from her 
Was richer, purer in its parent spirit. 

Her hope was high, but life and hope were 
doomed : 

Ere blooming May had ripened into June 
Her opening flower was nipped and all was lost: 

All lost to earth, but what the angels love 

[ 55 ] 


MUFFLE’S PROPHECY 


Is never lost to heaven. Go up to her; 
Receive a mother’s kiss and fond embrace : 
She may not speak, except a short farewell. 


(Muffie goes up to Unone: she embraces and kisses 
him, and looks affectionately into his face.) 

Unone 

My child, my wandering son ! farewell, farewell I 
(Unone releases Muffie, turns and disappears.) 
Mephie 

Muffie, my Poet, you are well requited 
For man’s indifference: you have received 
By special favour precious boons from heaven 
Rarely vouchsafed before: it is for you 
To justify that favour and my choice; 

And I am sure you will. But heed this truth: 

Poets and prophets while upon the earth 
Do not belong to earth : they live apart : 

They are wayfarers in a stranger land, 

The messengers from far celestial realms, 

With little share or profit in the good 

Which comes to natives here; and you, my Muffie, 

Are one of them; one in your inspiration, 

One in your aspiration and your trust, 

One in your labours, your discouragement^ 

[ 56 ] 


CONCOURSE III 


And sorrows, yet my Poet Prophet’s crown 
Is richer than a ducal coronet. 

It is the hour the miracles are doing. 

Survey the valley: tell us what appears. 

(Muffle surveys the vale toward the north and south.) 

Muffie 

The vale is natural upon the south, 

But on the north is transformation strange: 

I only see a boundless waste of waters. 

Mephie 

And is that all a solitary waste? 

Muffie 

It is not all : perpetual change occurs ; 

A mist obscures, and I can just perceive 
A shadowy, distant shore. The air grows clear; 
And full before my sight with all her isles, 

Her lofty headlands, her projecting capes, 

Her deep extended sinuous gulfs and bays, 

Her mighty mountains, all continuous, 

Her vales distinct, walled in on every side, 

Her wrecks of beauty unapproachable, 

Her battlefields of sacred memory, 

The realm of Hellas rises from the ocean. 

Mephie 

Go on, my Prophet. What appears in Hellas? 

[ 57 ] 


MUFFIE’S PROPHECY 


Muffie 

Extreme commotion rages everywhere. 

All Hellas is arrayed against herself : 

One part opposes personal possession 
And every other individual right: 

That part attacks all law, divine and human, 
Religion and all sacred family ties: 

Its battle-cry is 6 Love and Liberty 
With Absolute Equality for All.’ 

The other party has no battle-cry: 

It stands for law, religion and the home, 

And rights of persons as they were of old. 

The hardy sons of mountain fastnesses 
Retain those rights entire; but from the rest 
Some have been wrenched away ; and what remain 
Are greatly circumscribed and little worth. 
Athenae has an open gathering 
Of men and women from the aggressive side. 

A legislator in that interest 
Has risen to address his partisans: 

Sisters and Brothers in our noble cause, 

My record lies before you: I may say 
That I do not expect your full approval: 

The little progress made by legislation 
Toward Love and Liberty has not my own. 

We are not altogether blamable: 

Our way was difficult, as all must know 
Who ever tried by legislative means 
To advance the cause of Love and Liberty. 

Our enemies, astute, unscrupulous, 

[ 58 ] 


CONCOURSE III 


With all the aid that tyranny could give, 

With all the weapons traitor hands could wield, 
Defended point by point with some success : 

And yet our labour was not profitless : 

The university and all museums, 

Those artful panders to the pride of caste, 

Have been closed up ; and, more important still, 
Our teachers and ours only are employed 
In all the schools of primary degree. 

Upon my motion we proposed a law 
To disencumber the Acropolis, 

And use all rock that now obstructs the height 
For lime and building stones to house the people. 
We passed it, but the creature called the king 
Withheld approval from our generous measure, 
And put his mercenaries on that hill, 

The hated shrine of haughty privilege, 

The one museum that is open yet. 

Let me remind you, friends : two years ago 
The army was abolished: my own vote 
Was in the negative, and you yourselves 
Were hard against me for it: I was right: 

The army then was ours in sympathy, 

In our control at reasonable cost: 

How is it now? Traitors in Asia 

Supply the means ; the tyrant hires the men, 

All mountaineers and enemies of ours : 

That one mistake has cost us years of labour 
But no discouragement. Our every move 
Is in advance: we take no backward step. 

[ 59 ] 


MUFFIE’S PROPHECY 


Our victory is sure; and when it comes 
Our enemies will pay its price in full! 

He sits: a woman rises in reply: 

Brothers and Sisters in equality 
And universal love, I need not tell you 
How much we owe our brother : you all know it : 
The universal gratitude of Hellas 
Is less than he deserves ; and yet with him 
I cry in bitterness, how slow the pace 
Of progress toward the Brotherhood of Man ! 
And what appears is oft illusory. 

By closing up the university 

And all museums we have not advanced : 

That is illusive progress : nothing more : 

Closed up indeed : they should have been blown up 
That would have settled up their whole account : 
But closed up may be opened up again. 

The churches, most pestiferous of all, 

Stand open wide with bold effrontery: 

The time is far : we still have much to do ! 

The woman sits. The meeting fades away. 

The waters rise; the land sinks rapidly: 

Only the mountains are above the waters, 

And those are settling: they have disappeared, 
And all is water, ocean everywhere. 


Mephie 

Are you quite sure? Search all points carefully 
Some distant island may perhaps be found. 
[ 60 ] 


CONCOURSE III 


Muefie 

Yes, in the far-off east appears a land 
Approaching us, it seems : it surely is 
Nearer and nearer: now the British Isles 
Lie right before us here, an open scroll. 

Mephie 

My Prophet, read the scroll: leave nothing out. 
Muffie 

It tells a tale of terror past belief, 

A story of destruction past all hope. 

In all its countless hives of industry 
No busy hum is heard. The land is waste: 

No structures grand or beautiful remain: 
Cathedrals old and stately palaces 
Are shapeless ruins ; and the noble parks, 

The pride and glory of the British realm, 

Are lifeless all, charred deep by deadly fires. 

No fleets are there; no banners breast the breeze 
In all that land : none but the emblem dark 
Of desolation floating over all. 

No aspirations there with labour hard; 

No home, no individual, no hope: 

One stagnant mass of base equality 
Alone remains to stifle heart and soul: 

And yet they have a queen, a gentle dame, 

In place of him who gave his blood for them 
When freedom’s cause failed utterly in Britain: 
She came so quietly, unheralded, 

[ 61 ] 


MUFFIE’S PROPHECY 


So unpretentiously assumed her throne 
They never knew it ; but without dissent 
The foes of all authority and rule 
Wear her strange livery of slavery: 

Her name is Famine ; and she governs them 
By right divine with absolute control: 

She needs no ministry, no armament : 

She wears no golden crown of royalty: 

She, like her subjects, loves equality, 

Abhors all personal emolument, 

All eminence, and all authority 
Except her own: and so Queen Famine rules, 
And so they serve with banishment of toil 
In liberty, equality and love, 

And misery untold. If any man 

Has killed a wandering beast they flock around 

Like vultures over carrion, nor leave 

Till every bone is bare ; and when one dies 

He dies to keep a starving horde alive. 

Their furious hate and ardour militant 
Are gone forever, but their ghastly deeds 
Are present still to mock their deep distress. 

In highland glens, by Scotia’s lakes and rivers, 
By noble Shannon and the lordly Thames, 
Wherever Liberty’s mad band assailed 
And sacrificed its enemies to love, 

It gave no burial, and their skeletons 
By myriads are bleaching in the sun. 

The scene is changing and the British Isles 
Are moving toward the west beyond my ken. 
[ 62 ] 


CONCOURSE III 


The great Iberian peninsula 

Now comes before me, and the realm of France 

Over the Pyrennees; and, northward still, 

Holland and Belgium upon the sea, 

All lie before my vision clear and full. 

Mephie 

What word from them to us? What hope for man? 
Muffie 

A voice of wailing from the house of death 
Is all to us : they have no hope for man. 

What centuries of labour had achieved 
Has ruthless devastation razed or burned: 

In all Queen Famine’s rule is absolute 

Once more the view transforms: those blighted lands 

Are moving far into obscurity. 

I see the German realm upon the west, 

The Ural range and river on the east, 

The lofty Caucasus and great twin seas 
Upon the south, and all the lands between. 

Mephie 

What cheer from them ? What message to the world ? 
Muffie 

Queen Famine’s cheer: their message to the world 
Is all-pervading ruin dyed in blood, 

Distresses manifold with mad despair 

That sear the stricken heart and pall the soul. 

The world grows dark to me: no sea, no land; 

[ 63 ] 


MUFFIE’S PROPHECY 


I only hear the surging of the waters. 

My sight returns: the continent is gone, 

Even the lofty Alps and Apennines 

Have passed from view: the ocean swallowed them. 

Another change: the British Isles again 

Are rising from the ocean just before us. 

Mephie 

Has aught in mercy tempered their distress? 
Muffie 

No mercy tempers them: their miseries 
Are more and greater than they were before, 

At first Queen Famine ruled alone, but now 
Her daughter joins her in the government 
With full authority: her daughter Plague 
Whose potency is felt in all the realm: 

Her sceptre is the hydra that she holds; 

And subtle death darts fly to every part 
With hisses from the snake’s unnumbered heads. 
There is no love in all that desolate land, 

No trust, no tie; and every living soul 
Flies all the rest as harbingers of doom: 

The mother flies her child ; and if she hears 
Its dying moan she flies it farther yet. 

And when the deadly shaft has pierced a heart 
The helpless victim crawls away to die 
With maledictions upon earth and heaven, 

Without a hope to soothe his agony, 

Without attention and without a tear. 

[ 64 ] 


CONCOURSE III 


On all the ruined cities rests a ban: 

None enter them: none save the very few 
Who felt the poison dart and yet survived: 

When those meet there, half famished and half mad, 
The reeking halls resound with merriment 
And fiendish mockery before the dead. 

The scene transforms : the British Isles recede 
While other lands approach; and now I see 
All Europe to its utmost boundaries, 

Save only Hellas, plain before us here. 

Mephie 

How prospers Europe? Is there change for good? 
Muffie 

No change for good: Queen Famine governs yet: 
Famine and Plague: their rule is absolute. 

The loathsome horrors of the British Isles 
Are everywhere. I see the ruins bleak; 

I see the countless poison springs and streams; 

I see the ghastly wanderers flying still 
With terror and mistrust in every face; 

I see the crazed, the dying and the dead ; 

I hear the wails from dismal solitudes, 

The blasphemies of brutal misery. 

My sight grows very dim; my body faints; 

My spirit sinks before the passing world. 

Mephie 

Enough, my Prophet. Take a respite here. 

Turn toward the south and view the vale below: 

[ 65 ] 


MUFFIE’S PROPHECY 


Its mingled beauties will revive your spirit. 

Much yet remains to witness and relate; 

And what will come are worse than what have passed. 

(Muffle turns toward the south and looks down the 
vale.) 

Muffie 

Let the worst come. My spirit is refreshed. 

With heaven above and my good Master near 
The ordeal is welcome. I am ready. 

Mephie 

Well said, my Prophet. Heaven will shelter you. 
Look north again and tell us what appears. 

(Muffie turns and looks toward the north.) 

Muffie 

At rest upon its restless ocean bed 
I see all Europe, save the realm of Hellas. 

Mephie 

Do Famine and her daughter rule it still? 

Muffie 

Famine and Plague are gone. The rule is changed, 
And all is changed. It is not Europe now : 

It is what Heaven made it from the first, 

A mere appendage of the Asian world. 

Within my vision all its glorious realms, 

Its mighty realms of old have passed away: 

[ 66 ] 


CONCOURSE III 


The Asiatic lord is master there. 

From all of Asia except Japan. 

Ignoble sons of sires illustrious 
In freedom’s golden age are slaves today: 

They kneel before him and obey his nod, 
Rejoice in smiles or tremble in his frown. 

No realm escapes the universal doom: 

The Asiatic rulers govern all. 

Each in his own domain ; but all alike 
Their rule is rapine, blood and slavery. 

Mephie 

Are you quite sure that Asia governs all? 

Muffie 

I did mistake about Iberia: 

The African Morisco governs there: 

A difference without a difference. 

There is no hope, no respite on the earth: 

The doom of death is man’s whole destiny! 

Mephie 

Not quite so bad : the eye of faith grows dim, 
But heaven with hope is present, though unseen. 

Muffie 

My vision fails: impenetrable mist 
Has fallen upon the sea: it lifts again. 

Europe is gone, the British Isles appear. 

[ 67 ] 


MUFFIE’S PROPHECY 


Mephie 

Is Britain free? Does her imperial fleet 
Circle and guard inviolable shores? 

Muffie 

She is not free : she feels the tyrant’s power 
In all its terror, shame and bitterness : 

The Asian rules in her degenerate isles: 

Her pale barbarians are only slaves 
To feed his pleasure and promote his weal: 
And such they deem themselves. The very fleet 
That once made Britain monarch of the seas, 
Sold for a pittance in Queen Famine’s time, 
Now guards her prisoned coast. I see the sons 
Of Albion and Erin fall to earth 
Before their lords ; I see their toils and pains ; 

I see the devastation and the spoil, 

The violation and the sacrilege, 

I hear the daughter’s cry, the mother’s moan ; 

I see the father’s helpless agony; 

I hear his lamentation and his curse ! 

I see no more : my eyes are dim with tears ; 

And now the wails of sorrow die away. 

Mephie 

The isles are gone ; the ocean too is gone, 

And all the vale is natural again. 

But what the Prophet saw is writ in heaven 
As time will manifest before the world 
If men heed not his vision. You have told 
[ 68 ] 


CONCOURSE III 


How anarchy arose to spoil and ruin, 

How Europe sacrificed well ordered law, 

All rights of men, all sacred ties and hopes, 
All individual joys, ambitions, pride, 

And all the golden fruits of ages past 
To soul debasing, false equality, 

To love debauched, to happiness forlorn, 

And liberty in chains ; and how withal 
She lost her glorious potency in arms, 

And Asia’s countless numbers, unrestrained, 
Poured over her amain: all Europe then, 

Save only Hellas, felt the blighting power 
And supped the poison gall of slavery. 

Let not your spirit faint : though terrible 
The vision came in mercy. Men perhaps 
May heed the warning of your prophecy: 

But if it be rejected utterly 
The world will surely see what you have seen. 
We take a respite. When we meet again 
The scene will change : your vision will portray 
The nether sphere of human destiny. 

Leora 

Muffie is tired and sad ; but ere we part 
A noble sonnet is Unone’s due. 

Muffie 

That were impossible: with time untold 
A sonnet worthy of Unone’s name 
Would be a task beyond poor Muffle’s power. 
[ 69 ] 


MUFFIE’S PROPHECY 


The Finto 

Muffle, my friend, Leora wishes it : 

What she desires you cannot fail to do : 

Her fire from heaven will animate your spirit. 

Muffie 

(Improvising) 

Sonnet to Unone 

Below the waters in the heart’s great deep 
Repose its buried treasures more and less : 

The ghastly skeletons of happiness 
Lie there together in eternal sleep, 

So long, so low it has forgot to weep: 

The child of pride ambition’s wild excess 
The dear one taken from a fond caress, 
Bestrew the caves where sunbeams never peep 

But one pure joy will ever charm for me: 

One name, Unone’s name, can never die ; 

Her mother’s heart will ever throb with mine. 
Though deadly ills be cruel fate’s decree 
No power of life nor death may rend the tie 
When earth and heaven link in love divine. 

Leora 

Muffie, a sonnet beautiful indeed: 

That mother’s love will ever cherish it. 


[ 70 ] 


CONCOURSE III 


Mephie 

Our work, well done, is over for today: 

Record it carefully. Farewell, my Prophet. 

The Finto 

Farewell, dear Muffle, till we meet again. 

Leora 

We surely meet again. Good-bye, good-bye. 

Muffie 

Farewell, my Master dear. Farewell, dear Friends. 

(Mephie, The Finto and Leora disappear. Exit 
Muffie. ) 


CONCOURSE IV 


SCENE: Muffle standing upon an eminence in Yellow - 
stone Parle. 

TIME: A bright summer day. 

Muffie 

What nature can disclose magnificent 
And wonderful I see in this retreat: 

The distant mountain chains on every side 
With high peaks glorious in icy crowns, 

The clear deep lake whose far extended shores 
Are bowered in evergreen, the crystal river 
That plunges from the sheer stupendous height 
To cleave the hills beyond, its gorge profound 
Whose walls abrupt in many colourings, 

Lit by the sunbeams and the foaming torrent, 

Are ever-changing, ever-beautiful : 

All these and more that crowd upon the sense 
And awe the soul are round me everywhere : 

But over all are those demoniac things 
Whose raging waters cleave the ambient air, 
Resplendent far aloft. Throughout this vale 
Of Alpine height their steaming cones appear, 

Alike, distinct in form and qualities. 

Old Faithful there, his hour of rest complete 
And strength renewed, with quakings terrible 
[ 72 ] 


CONCOURSE IV 


Propels his waters toward the upper sky. 

The Giant yonder, greater, stronger far, 

Like some volcano heaves the hills amain, 

And sends his blazing waters higher still. 

The Giantess, more dreadful yet than he, 
Strangest of all, I see without a cone: 

In boundless fury of the ages past 

She rent her cone and granite sides away, 

And left her wide expanse of angry waters. 

She surges now: more and more horrible 
Her waters roll ; and now with marvellous power 
She sends her mighty column heavenward 
The while she almost wrecks the labouring earth. 
Before me in the distance, yet asleep, 

I see the little Beehive, to the eye 
So insignificant and innocent 
A careless child might play upon his top 
In full security; but now he wakes 
And breathes his curling steam into the air; 

And higher, denser, higher till his rim 
Is gently overflowed ; more violent, 

In fitful whirling gushes he projects 
The angry seething fluids : suddenly, 

In one continuous, tremendous burst, 

Far, far away, beyond the reach of thought, 

His waters gleam above the lower world 
To greet the midday sun. Earth does not quake : 
Foreboding death she trembles in her pangs 
Lest every fateful moment prove her last. 

His miracle subsides as it began, 

[ 73 ] 


MUFFIE’S PROPHECY 


And she is happy in deliverance; 

But over me he cast a spell sublime 

That cannot die: among his dread compeers 

He knows no equal: he is all supreme, 

The unchallenged monarch of this wondrous realm. 

It is a holy place. My soul, inspired 
By full diffusion of Omnipotence, 

Perceives herself in audience with heaven. 

But not alone the grandeur and the awe 
Encompass me : a subtile influence 
Pervades the air and permeates my being: 

I feel it more and more as I have felt 
In precious moments when the Master blessed 
And spirits dear were at my side unseen : 

They must be near: such joy is not of earth: 

It is the rapture of supernal spheres. 

(Mephie, The Finto and Leora appear upon Muffle’s 
left. He approaches them and they greet him affec- 
tionately.) 

Leora 

You knew our presence, Muffle: am I right? 

Muffie 

I felt it plainly as I see you here. 

Mephie 

Sweet intercourse of immortalities 
Full spiritual sense perceives and feels 
Celestial presence and celestial love : 

Most mortals, like the partly colour blind, 

[ 74 ] 


CONCOURSE IV 


Perceive obscurely and imperfectly; 

And often these, by things upon the earth 
Blinded still more to things above the earth, 
Cannot perceive at all, do not believe. 

Muffie 

O that kind Heaven would give the sense to all 
That all might have the precious intercourse ! 


Mephie 

Your passionate wish, though born of charity, 

Is critical of Deity, and so 

Wholly unworthy of my Poet Prophet. 

Muffie 

Your pardon, Master; Heaven’s pardon too 
For heedless words: my fault will not recur. 


Mephie 

It cannot, for the light of inspiration 

And angels’ love will guide the Prophet right. 

But mortals vain, in pride of intellect 

All circumscribed, construct their various worlds 

In contradiction to Omnipotence: 

They spread their wings upon the dark abyss 
Without a guide, no compass and no star 
To gauge infinity, regardless all 
That farther flight goes farther yet astray. 
[ 75 ] 


MUFFIE’S PROPHECY 


Muffie 

Will it be so forever? Will the time 
Of miracle and prophecy divine 
Return no more, nor Heaven come to earth 
In vengeance to confound His enemies? 


Mephie 

The time of miracle and prophecy 
Is present still, and it can never pass. 

God’s miracles are doing every da}" 

But few discern : He speaks as plainly now 
As to the sainted poet seers of old; 

But most are deaf as they have ever been. 

Believe me, should another prophet rise 
Like rapped Isaiah he would hear the voice, 

And thunder forth in words of living fire 

The doom that brazen infamy and wrong 

Bring down upon themselves : yes, Heaven is here, 

But not in wrath to smite His enemies 

For He is love supreme : they smite themselves : 

Man’s every thought rewards or punishes: 

It must ennoble or degrade the soul. 


Muffie 

If Heaven does not punish, can there be, 

As men believe, a place of misery 
Where souls incorrigible ever feel 
The unmeasured torments of undying fires? 
I have imagined oft that on the sun 
[ 76 ] 


CONCOURSE IV 


Or in the liquid centre of the earth 
Might be their place of deadly banishment: 

But in the lapse of time the earth will cool, 

Even to the centre, and the sun himself 
Spend his tremendous heat, and roll through 
space 

Dark, dead and cold as our own lifeless moon: 

So not within the earth nor on the sun 
Can endless torment dwell. Give me the light 
As far as mortal may receive the light. 

Mephie 

There is no place of punishment; and yet 
There is a place of miserable death 
Where passions foul of spirits prostitute 
Kindle infernal fires: the only fires 
That may assail supernal essences. 

To harrow beings incorporeal 

The zephyr sweet which fans the violet 

Is all as potent as the molten sun. 

A vision true of that dark dismal world, 

As far as earthbound souls may have and 
know, 

By Heaven’s command you will be shown today. 

A word beside my duty: you mistake: 

The sun can never cool: by Sovereign Will 
The central pressure of his mighty mass 
Upon itself begets the light and heat 
He radiates to his revolving orbs: 

You see, my Prophet, one mysterious power, 

[ 77 ] 


MUFFIE’S PROPHECY 

Heaven’s power, which holds the planets in their 
course, 

Illuminates and warms them on their way. 

But time is up. Come, sit beside me, Muffle. 

(Mephie and Muffle seat themselves upon a rock: 
Muffle is on the left.) 

Repose your head in trust upon my breast 
As on a mother’s: Heaven is with you here. 

(Muffle lays his head upon Mephie’s breast and sleeps : 
Supported by Mephie standing on his right, he wakes 
on the foot of a mountain in the fiery Vale of Death: 
The Finto and Leora are standing on Mephie’s right.) 

This is the place of souls unworthy heaven 
Upon their way to death. What see you, Muffle? 

Muffie 

I see a gloomy, fiery vale below 
With desolate mountain chains on either side: 
Black darkness hides their top, but I can hear 
The dismal wailing of the winter winds 
Through peaks invisible. No rill descends 
From those dead heights. There is no heaven above 
To cheer that vale of doom. A strange weird river 
With many affluents rolls down on fire. 

The only light is from the lurid flames 
Of those infernal rivers, and the gleaming 
Of dense effluvia that rise and fall. 

[ 78 ] 


CONCOURSE IV 


Far down the vale the mountain chains recede 
On either side, and farther still unite 
To form a basin where a lurid lake 
Of wide expanse receives the burning river. 

I see the spirits in the fiery vale 
As they were mortal still. The streams are fed 
By reeking vapours from those fated souls. 
Bright scintillations of effluvium 
Are issuing from all at every part: 

As these arise they gather into clouds 
Of changing fires which light the sombre vale; 
And then, at intervals, in glowing showers 
Replenish burning streams and fade away. 

The souls enjoy the showers and bathe in them; 
And ever and anon, as by constraint, 

They rush into the streams, and while they lave 
Imbibe to rapture of the fiery waters. 

The flames encircle them, and yet it seems, 
Inflict no pain to mar their ecstasy. 

All lave alike, all drink alike, and then 

With heightened zest and power pursue their ways 

And all seem happy in their fiery home: 

Can it be so? Have they no pain, no sorrow? 

Is this their doom? Is this the very end? 

Mephie 

Their doom but not their end as will appear 
Far down the vale where all are journeying. 
The subtle poison of those burning streams, 
The emanations born of deadly passions, 

[ 79 ] 


MUFFIE’S PROPHECY 


Gives joyous exaltation while it saps 
And blights the very essence of their being 
Till immortality is lost in death: 

It is not punishment: within that vale 
Can be no pain, no sorrow, no despair: 

Its busy denizens in all their strife, 

In all their passions, wiles and vanities, 

Proceed along the beaten ways of earth 
For they are human souls. Some souls appear 
Whose sense divine was all obscured in life 
By reasonings false and proud: they pace about 
In lofty thought on systems arrogant, 

Lave, drink, and grope their way down fiery 
streams 

Among the odious. Relate to us 

What most absorbs among those fated ones. 

And picture it again before the world. 


Muffie 

Workings malign of passions dark, intense, 
Reacting, interacting constantly 
In devious ways defy the poet’s power. 


Mephie 

The prophet’s power is ample. Not the loud 
Obtrusive forms of blatant infamy, 

But the sad vision of the souls below, 

All bearing down the Fiery Vale to death, 
Must be your picture to the souls on earth. 
[ 80 ] 


CONCOURSE IV 


Muffie 

An aureole around a spirit’s brow, 

Like the bright halo of divinity, 

In words of fire distinct records her name, 

And what she did aforetime in the world: 

But some appear without a history, 

Some even without a name: what can it mean? 

Mephie 

Those are the souls malign of childhood’s years : 

Their dark propensities, concealed from man 
Before their flight, were only known in heaven. 

Muffie 

Why said the Master then, when little ones 
Were turned away from him, “ Of such is heaven ”? 

Mephie 

Because it is: Divine Immanuel 
Extolled an infancy of purity, 

Of trusting faith and love like heaven itself: 

The souls below were not within that pale. 

Celestial laws obey the Father’s will 
In things ethereal : by nature’s laws. 

His will controls throughout the universe. 

Man’s dual nature in the spirit world 
And world material makes him alone 
Amenable to all: and hence it is 
Subversive powers upon the earthly side 
[ 81 ] 


MUFFIE’S PROPHECY 


May mar the spirit in her natal hour 
And make her all impossible for heaven, 

A wayward thing of evil from the first. 

Muffie 

By inspiration from the Master dear 
I see a truth I never saw before, 

And all is clear. The busy spirits there 
Feed passions dominant, malevolent, 
Insatiate, as they have done on earth. 

I see a pair together, man and wife 
In their mortality, who count their gains 
And gloat upon possession won by wrong. 

A dying father in his testament 
Consigned the man his children’s legacy 
In trust to be administered for them : 

But afterward, the man possessed of all, 

It was administered for himself and his: 

The orphans were despoiled and cast aside: 
Not one iota ever went to them. 

His ledger was required, and he replied 
That it could not be found; and it could not: 
The lie he told was in accord with fact : 

That potent witness to his treachery 
Rested upon the bottom of the sea : 

The mighty waters of the Golden Gate 
Had swallowed it full many a fathom down. 
But Heaven Himself it seemed by miracle 
Opposed the infamy. A fisherman 
With deepest ocean tackling, far from shore, 
[ 82 ] 


CONCOURSE IV 


Drew up the book uninjured from its bed: 

When afterward the man appeared in court 
His ledger lay before him open wide 
With all its evidence ; but even then, 

Despite its testimony clear and full, 

By diabolical tenacity 

And ingenuity in devious laws 

He held the orphans’ heritage forever. 

With exultations loud and laughter deep 
They glorify successful perfidy. 

They weary now ; their aureoles grow dim ; 

And, plunging headlong in the burning stream, 

They drink its waters and renew their powers. 
Another spirit glides along the stream 
On stealthy foot and greets the gathered souls: 

Her voice is musical, low-toned and sweet. 

In, out and in among the multitude, 

With words of seeming sympathy for one, 

Love for another, charity for all, 

She goes upon her never-ending way: 

But every pleasant word is poison tipped, 

And, far as may be on those fated souls, 

Works like the cobra’s venom on the blood. 

She was a gentle woman, and her life 

On earth was blessed with every charm and hope 

Which lead to happiness : her palace home, 

The dear ancestral home her fathers knew, 

Was lowered and hidden in its wide domain, 

Its realm of oaks whose crowns had spread their leaves 
To greet the suns of many centuries. 

[ 83 ] 


MUFFIE’S PROPHECY 


The rarest flowers from every tropic clime, 

And birds of gorgeous plumage, birds of song, 
Commingled there to make a paradise. 

She was half orphan for her mother’s life 
Was lost upon her birth. Her father saw 
Her full maturity of maiden beauty, 

And then his health declined: his family, 

Though numerous in generations past, 

With many branches from the parent stem, 

Was then reduced in numbers: only two, 

Two distant cousins, young collegians, 

Remained to take the noble heritage 
By right before his daughter Emelyn: 

But she was deeply read in arts occult : 

All harmful substances that nature yields, 

And all their deadly powers mysterious 
In all their combinations manifold, 

She knew them well and wrought them skilfully. 
All fascinations of resistless beauty 
Were hers by nature: she regaled in them: 

So while her father lived her cousins died, 

And she inherited: the older one, 

The last, a man of mark and scholarship, 

Was her own suitor, and his grateful heart 
Was rich in her affection: both were then 
Together at the palace, not alone: 

Another cousin, Emelyn’s dearest friend, 

Was there with her betrothed. The day was set, 
One day for all ; and happy Emelyn 
Outdid her very self in radiant beauty 
[ 84 ] 


CONCOURSE IV 


And witchery of wondrous womanhood. 

But when the time drew near a dark disease 
Attacked her lover: fever, mild at first 
But rapidly increasing, sapped his life. 

What medicine could do, what prayer could do, 

And all that love could do was done for him; 

And Emelyn, in all her anxious grief 
More beautiful, if that were possible, 

Than in her joy, watched over him: 

But all was vain: inexorable fate 
Decreed his death : he went from bad to worse 
Till reason lost her sovereignty, and then 
His wandering mind still dwelt on Emelyn. 

The end came soon and all were overwhelmed, 

And Emelyn was inconsolable. 

He died upon the appointed bridal day: 

The death toll stilled the golden wedding bells. 

The stricken friend departed all in tears 
Of hapless maidenhood; but Emelyn, 

Forlorn, exacted promise of return 

And marriage too when time had tempered sorrow. 

The maiden’s promise was impossible 

Of sweet fulfilment: from that very hour 

Her lover proved himself both false and cruel: 

He cast away her trusting, faithful heart 
Without one soothing word or fond regret. 

Some time for mourning past, not very long, 

While she was rapped in solitary grief, 

He paid his court to Emelyn herself 
To be rebuffed severely, and reproved 
[ 85 ] 


MUFFIE’S PROPHECY 


Without effect for his false-heartedness. 

The more unmerciful was Emelyn 
The more his wild infatuation grew 
Till melancholy seized him ; then his mind 
In hopeless hope grew darker till the end. 

Time passed and Emelyn became a wife: 

Two sons were born before her husband’s death; 
And Emelyn thenceforth remained a widow, 
Besieged by many suitors, much admired, 

And much beloved unhappily by all. 

And ever here, as when upon the earth, 

She goes with sweet, seductive, blighting words, 
The while her gracious ways compel the souls 
To admiration which resembles love. 

Mephie 

The histories, though various and rich 
In vital truth, are not our chief concern. 

To note this vision of the fated spirits 
Upon their pitiable way to death, 

As I have said, is your first duty here. 

Muffie 

Unceasing labours, onerous and vain, 

Appear throughout the vale. The spirits gather, 
Disperse and gather as their motives guide ; 

And every one intent upon her own, 

Her dominant lusts and passions odious, 

Her guidance blind, her deep perverse designs. 
Upon exhaustion, driven as by fate, 

[ 86 ] 


CONCOURSE IV 


They lave in lambent showers and lurid streams, 
And sup exhilaration from the waters 
While darting serpent flames encircle them. 

All dark intents of animosity, 

All baleful lusts and passions known to men, 
Are everywhere in strife continuous. 

Two spirits yonder, old antagonists, 

Resume their lifelong enmity of earth 
With crimination and vituperation. 

* My father saved yours from a felon’s doom,’ 
Exclaims the one with angry voice and mien, 

6 And in return w r as pauperized by him ! ’ 

With fiendish laughter comes the quick reply: 

‘ He was a fool and reaped a fool’s reward. 

That you inherited by right divine.’ 

Many the souls of men and women, too, 

Spirits most vile, rejoicing over gains 
From groping prisoners in the caves of death, 
From vices nameless ever even here: 

Among them pass the souls without constraint 
Who fed their avarice, all wanton still, 

But so transformed from every native beauty, 
So grovelling and hideous in look, 

Their very panders would compassion them 
If pity here were not impossible. 

Far other souls in contemplation deep 
On things terrestrial pace the barren plain: 

All similar and yet all different: 

By every subtle art of villany 

One held upon his devious, deadly course: 

[ 87 ] 


MUFFIE’S PROPHECY 


Another’s promise was inviolate, 

His word was ever true: yet both alike, 

Perverse and hard, were bound in golden chains. 
No pleasure in the earth nor in the skies, 

No charity, no love for man nor heaven, 

They held their ruthless way to gainful ends. 

And left their trail of misery behind: 

The old man’s little store from labour long, 

The widow’s home, the orphan’s heritage, 

Were swallowed up by them with heartless joy 
To feed an appetite insatiate: 

So passed their lives, and so they left the world; 
And so they journey down the Yale of Death 
Two classes opposite commingle there 
Among the spirits: one of sullen front 
And stern demeanour, holding in themselves, 

In fancied certainty, all light of truth, 

And hating all beyond their narrow pale: 

Their very nature is anathema: 

They call incessantly and ardently 
For Heaven’s avenging punishment on all 
Who follow not their light : strange as it seems, 
Their prayers resound for vengeance even here: 
But stranger yet than all, the aureoles 
Of many tell of boundless avarice, 

Or passions odious and violent, 

Or both combined, all ruthless and corrupt. 

On earth their contraries like butterflies 
Outflew the hours on pleasure’s vagrant wing: 

No look beyond, above, no sober thought, 

[ 88 ] 


CONCOURSE IV 


No impulse generous, no high resolve 
With earnest labour in a holy cause: 

From day to day, from youth to drooping age 
The aim and consummation of their life 
Was pleasure sensuous and sensual. 

Here as on earth play, dance and revelry, 
Diversion still in all its varying forms, 

In all its wearying round of nothingness, 

Absorbs them quite, regarding not those bounds 
Nor death’s dark doom impending over them. 
The felon guilds appear in all the vale: 

With sidelong furtive glance or brazen face 
They greet the passing souls; but in the guise 
Of conscious guilt or bold effrontery 
The mark of Cain is on their forehead still: 
They know each other and are known by all. 

A group of them assembles by the river, 

And each assumes the proud preeminence: 

They tell things horrible with rapture high 
As might a soldier speak of noble deeds 
In face of death, or some evangelist 
Relate the story of a spirit saved. 

The souls who ply the trade of politics 
Through stimulus nefarious and low 
Are ever active here as on the earth. 

In conclave secret their designs mature; 

By tortuous hidden ways they reach dark ends; 
All sycophancy to the prince or mob, 

They bend the servile knee to power enthroned 
Or deify the proletariat. 

[ 89 ] 


MUFFIE’S PROPHECY 


Though quick to take the deftly proffered bribe 

And reap the profits of iniquity 

They simulate the guise of honesty 

Before the vale and claim the patriot’s crown. 

Another class of miscreants appears 

Among the rest, in wealth or poverty 

As fortune smiles or frowns on villany: 

As in their mortal state they practise here 
All subtle arts and secret ways of theft, 

And with another diabolic art 

That stills the victim’s plaint : with them appear 

Two other classes, old associates 

Of theirs upon the earth as in the vale: 

Besotted one, degraded in extreme, 

Both mental sense and moral in eclipse: 

The other saunters proud and prosperous, 

With all the perquisites of affluence: 

But here their avocation is no more: 

All drink the liquid of the fiery streams. 

Here are the various literary clans, 

Poets and prosemen who, while on the earth, 
Were ministers to vice in all her forms 
And all her varied natures, who confused 
The boundaries between the pure and foul. 

And sapped the very citadel of virtue 
In holy name of truth and righteousness : 

Their deadly work goes on : their restless pens 
Are dipped in liquid of the burning rivers; 

The infernal pages ever multiply. 

Throughout the vale beyond restraint the hordes 

[ 90 ] 


CONCOURSE IV 


Of spirits wild predominate the rest: 

Their ardent fury bides no opposite: 

Their cry is still for love and liberty. 

And absolute equality for all: 

Their love is only cruelty untold, 

Their liberty is tyranny supreme; 

And full equality, as on the earth, 

Is degradation hopeless and complete 
They recognise no individual rights, 

Have but one purpose, one perverted will 
To see all souls on level with themselves. 

A parliament beyond the burning river 
Appears in session, and the savage souls 
Are gathered deep around it clamouring, 

No laws for us! no tyranny for us! 

The ringing voices of the woman souls 
Are more tempestuous. And now I hear 
A fearful cry resounding through the vale 
As once it sounded terribly on earth: 

“ You are no more parliament,” and they dissolve. 

Mephie 

We are passing down the vale by miracle. 

The lake is clearer now. Note every change 
For all are fateful to the unconscious souls, 

And all must be recorded for the world. 

But not alone the vision ominous : 

The things unseen are all important too. 

We have not seen among those countless spirits 
Anguish for crime, sorrow for misery, 

[ 91 ] 


MUFFIE’S PROPHECY 


Nor any touch of sympathy or love. 

A single tear of charity or pity 

From any soul upon the burning river 

Would quench the deadly fires about that soul, 

And bring the angels down from heaven to her. 

Muffie 

I see no change material ; and yet 
There is one difference: the spirits here 
Bathe frequently, are longer in the stream: 

And here another, greater change appears : 

Their aureoles are smaller, less distinct; 

The souls have lost their primal strength and fire, 
And still decline, emerging from the stream 
With renovation less and less complete. 

Their haloes here are quite invisible, 

And they themselves are miserably changed: 

No power nor will to leave the stream they float, 
Listless and helpless as the current glides, 

To reach the waters of the burning lake. 

I see them faintly, and more faintly now, 

Tossed limp upon the fiery curling waves 
As lifeless all; and now they disappear. 

I feel a dreadful change. My sight is gone: 

The upper darkness has enveloped us. 

(Mephie and Muffie are again seated upon the rock: 
Muffie is on the left, sleeping, with his head resting upon 
Mephie’s breast. The Finto and Leora are on Mephie’s 
right. Muffie wakes.) 


[ 92 ] 


CONCOURSE IV] 


Mephie 

Back safe, my Prophet, from the Vale of Death. 
Muffie 

Back safe ! The gracious Master shielded me 
When Stygian darkness had infolded me, 

And Heaven, it seemed, would cast my soul away 

Mephie 

It was the Prophet’s ordeal supreme, 

Passed like a prophet of the olden time. 

Picture again what you have seen today 
That wayward Earth may know her destiny. 

Muffie 

With Heaven’s favour men shall see the vision 
As true and clear as I myself have seen it 
That light of prophecy may guide the world. 

The Finto 

Dear Muffie mine, the world will wander still 
In spite of prophecy and heaven itself. 

Leora 

Not all: the prophet’s light is not in vain: 

Some souls afar will see and follow it. 

Mephie 

Our task is done. A song, Leora dear. 

[ 93 ] 


MUFFIE’S PROPHECY 


The Finto. 

us a love song in your sweet, sad vein. 

Leora 

(Singing) 

( 1 ) 

Dark despair to hope is nearest, 
Boundless joy to pain severest. 

Fare thee well, my own, my dearest! 
Ever fare thee well! 


( 2 ) 

Blind as death to fate impending, 

How I dreamed of bliss unending, 
Dreamed of heaven to earth descending: 
Then the wild farewell! 

(3) 

O thou Child of Glory, never 
From its pole my heart sever ! 

Love forlorn will live forever, 

Moaning sad farewell! 

(4) 

Longing, weeping, sighing, sighing! 
Hopeless, endless dying, dying! 

Only hear me crying, crying, 

Dearest, fare thee well! 

[94] 


CONCOURSE IV 


(5) 

Fare thee well! Good angels bless thee! 
Faithful, fondest love caress thee! 
Wailing sorrow ne’er oppress thee! 
Fare thee, fare thee well! 

( 6 ) 

Fare thee well! it must be spoken 
Though my yearning heart be broken ! 
Hear the last, the saddest token : 

Loved One, fare thee well! 

Mephie 

A pleasure past expression, dear Leora. 

Leora 

A love song, Finto, in your sad, mad vein. 

The Finto 
(Singing) 

(1) 

I will journey far from the dismal spot 
Till my fatal dream is a thing forgot, 

Till the hateful name is remembered not, 

And skies are bright above me. 

( 2 ) 

O the queenly form in perfection rare, 

The blue eye so mild, and the face so fair, 

And her wealth of sunbeaming golden hair, 
And promise dear to love me ! 

[95] 


MUFFIE’S PROPHECY 


(3) 

When she gave her pledge, — not in words expressed 
In her tears and sobs it was all confessed; 

And I fondly thought I was more blessed 
In troth by angel plighted. 

(4) 

O the dark, dark fate ! but I will be free 
From a heart untrue as the heart can bel 
Every tear and sob was a curse to me, 

And all my life is blighted! 

(5) 

It was day of doom upon which we met ! 

How I loved, — 0 me, how I love her yet! 

What are faithless tears when the heart is set! 

It clings though all has perished! 

(6) . 

It is vain, in vain, if the pride rebels 

While the sweet, sad theme on the memory dwells, 

And a deeper love in my bosom swells 

Than earth has ever cherished. 


(7) 

What is this, weak One? You are yielding now! 
Was my birthright sold for a broken vow? 

Was I born a slave? I will never bow 
Till heart and soul dissever! 

[ 96 ] 


CONCOURSE IV 


( 8 ) 

O the joyous hope that was mine before! 

O the trusting love time cannot restore ! 

The enraptured hours that will come no more! 
Farewell, farewell, forever! 

Mephie 

And Finto too: I cannot say enough. 

Farewell, my Prophet: we shall meet again 
At duty’s call: till then, farewell, with love. 

The Finto 

Farewell, my Muffie, till we meet in love. 

Leora 

Good-bye, with sweet remembrance till we come. 
Muffie 

My gracious Master, Angel Friends, farewell! 

(Mephie, The Finto and Leora disappear. Exit 
Muffie.) 


[ 97 ] 


CONCOURSE V 


SCENE: Muffle standing upon Mount Parnassus. 
TIME: A clear summer day. 

Muffie 

Am I awake or do I only dream 
Under the pine where I was lulled asleep 
By dying dirges from the distant sea? 

I do not dream: my vision is no phantom: 

That is the realm of Hellas, and this peak 
Must be Parnassus : it can be no other. 

All is reality, and yet how changed: 

Parnassus towers above his great compeers 
In solitary grandeur: I can see 
What lies beyond them upon every side 
As if by miracle: and sucb it is: 

A miracle conveyed me here, and here 
I wait the Master’s pleasure till he come. 


(Mephie, The Finto and Leora appear upon Muffle’s 
right.) 


Mephie 

Good, faithful Prophet: he is with you now 
And will support you in your coming trial, 
[ 98 ] 


CONCOURSE V 


Muffie 

My Master dear, dear Friends, my joy is full. 
What task you bring, what ordeal severe 
Is but the manifest of love to me. 

Leoba 

But not to you alone: to you and all. 

The Finto 

And yet to Muffie as the poet seer 
Of clearer faith we give a special honour, 

A special love direct and personal. 

Mephie 

It ever has been so. Where are we, Muffie? 
Muffie 

We are in Hellas, upon Mount Parnassus. 
Mephie 

This mountain has no rival in the Alps: 

It should not be Parnassus. Look again: 
Look carefully, then tell me where we are. 

Muffie 

That sea-rent land is Hellas: I am sure. 

For cause divine by miracle supreme 
Parnassus overtops all other peaks; 

And even high Olympus in the north 
Seems little in comparison with him. 

[ 99 ] 


MUFFIE’S PROPHECY 


Mephie 

You reason right, my Muffie: that is Hellas; 
This is Parnassus ; and the miracle 
Is but the prelude to a prophecy 
Of strife and horror: is my Prophet ready? 

Muffie 

Yes, ever ready for the Master’s work. 

Mephie 

Picture us Hellas as you see her there: 

Not too particular, but general. 

Muffie 

Her northern boundary is crescent formed, 
Extending from Corcyra’s southern cape 
To Nestus River near the iEgean main. 

All Hellas northward from the Khassia Range, 
And from the mountain way that skirts Olympus 
Upon the south, all in the west extreme 
Between the Arta and the Ionian Sea, 

All lying east from Therma’s western shore, 

A realm within itself : that have we seen 
Redeemed from Ottoman but yesterday, 

And held against the Bulgar’s wild assaults 
By deeds immortal; and if spirits feel 
Rapture and pride in such the men of old 
Who met the Persian hosts at Marathon 
And Salamis must glory in their sons. 

On every side appears a land of mountains. 

[ 100 ] 


CONCOURSE V 


The noble Pindus holds the west extreme ; 

And lofty ranges from the distant east, 

Like greatest rivers in the ocean’s flood, 

Are swallowed up and lost among his peaks. 

The mighty ranges from Lepanto Gulf 

Toward the far north or toward the southern capes 

Complete the picture, incomplete in all: 

Eor everywhere among her greater chains 
Are other smaller ranges joined or sundered; 

And isolated peaks are interspersed 
To make a mountain maze inscrutable. 

But even her mountain world cannot surpass 
The ever-changing grandeur of her coast: 

Its gulfs and bays whence great emporiums 
Extend commercial arms to every land, 

Its far peninsulas that cleave the sea 
With headland high and bold, all seem indeed 
As if Old Ocean in titanic rage 
Of times long lost had rifted earth away, 

Or, stranger still, as if plutonic powers 
Had rent the eternal rock in every part. 

To southward far upon the south extreme 
Where Europe ends I see the four great gulfs 
And their peninsulas whose rockbound heights 
Vex all the sea into perpetual rage: 

There not a promontory, not an isle, 

And not one wave that rolls upon the deep 
But tells the story of a wondrous past 
In harmony with nature’s majesty. 

Thence north and westward on the western coast 

[ 101 ] 


MUFFIE’S PROPHECY 


Opens Lepanto’s giant waterway, 

Winding along from west to eastern shore 
In devious course by mountains, vales and streams, 
By cities prosperous and ruins drear, 

With stormy capes, with bays for busy marts 
And plying ships : a little ocean world, 

Lying in marvellous beauty at our feet. 
Northeastward far appears great Therma Gulf: 
It is an inland sea of Hellas now: 

There, glorious upon her deep recess, 
Thessalonica, Queens of the JE'gean, 

Receives her tribute from the eastern world : 
There wrought the martyr monarch, there he bled 
In the great fatal moment that fulfilled 
The cherished hope of consecrated life. 

All streams in Hellas are of mountain birth ; 

And in the farther south where grandeur reigns 
In all beside rivers are trivial. 

One southern gulf receives a living stream: 
Eurotas winds its way from northern hills 
Through reeds and flowers into Laconia. 

Storied iEgina, easternmost of all, 

Greatest of all, where sits Athenae crowned 
With double diadem, receives no river: 

Cephissus flows upon Athenae’s right, 

Ilissus on her left: a rivulet 
That disappears before the summer sun: 
Cephissus, larger, is lost utterly 
To make a cool suburban paradise. 

Rivers are larger on the main of Hellas. 

[ 102 ] 


CONCOURSE V 


The great Peneus, Monarch of the Realm, 

From northern Pindus and the Khassia Range, 
Pursues his tortuous course from west to east, 
With many tribute streams upon the way, 

To reach his ocean home in Therma Gulf. 

A noble river, wandering Europus, 

Is last to join near Tempe’s mountain vale: 

In that deep gorge I see where beauty dwells 

In glory unapproachable: below 

The mighty river foaming, surging on, 

Mad to his destiny; on either side 

The winding wall, sheer up to meet the sky, 

Is under canopy of vines and flowers ; 

And graceful trees whose branches interlace, 
Festooned with clematis, are over all. 

Mephie 

What else appears of beautiful or strange? 
Muffie 

Beyond the entrance I can just perceive, 

On a small terrace up the dizzy height, 

The little town of Amberlakia, 

A swallow’s nest upon the granite wall. 

On all the gulfs and streams, on all the plains, 

On all the mountain sides, in all the vales 
Appear the busy towns and villages. 

Far toward the south and near the south extreme 
Where Sparta stood, and from the riverside 
Ruled Lacedaemon in her golden prime, 

[ 103 ] 


MUFFIE’S PROPHECY 

I see another Sparta on Eurotas, 

Unlike the first, without her memories, 

A modern village on historic ground, 

Yet greater in the unity of Hellas 
Than was the old in all her power and pride. 

Thence north and eastward in its deep recess 
Stands Nauplia upon its noble bay. 

The city, filled with busy, joyous life, 

The darksome haunts where rapturous beauty dwells, 
Are full before me but they fade away: 

I only see the band of patriots 

Below the rock that black December night, 

Gathered to die, a hopeless hope forlorn : 

I see them next, as by supernal aid, 

Swoop down upon that rock like birds of prey, 

And Ottoman awakes a prisoner. 

Now the resourceful Ibrahim appears 
With blight and burning in his victories 
From the far west to Palamidi Rock, 

Last hope of Hellas ; and I see him there, 

By slow approach and furious assault, 

Impel his powers again and yet again 
In vain upon that hold impregnable, 

And Hellas lives today: northwestward thence, 

Past desolate Tiryns and the high Larisa, 

The City of Argos rises from the plain: 

It seems the market of a fruitful vale, 

A village overgrown ; but gathered there 
In its museum are its monuments 
Of power and art mysterious: they take 
[ 104 ] 


CONCOURSE V 


Imagination back through cycles vast 

To immemorial antiquity 

When Argos ruled and Babylon was great. 

To north and eastward on the eastern shore 
Of islanded iEgina: there supreme 
Athenae rises on the Attic Plain : 

A double city: her commercial mart 
Upon Piraeus, in itself alone 
A great emporium. The parent city, 

The Athenae known to all in every age, 

Born on the Acropolis, extends afar 
On every side: she has two giant guards, 

The blue Hymettus rising on the south, 

And on the north white-veined Pentelicus. 

Her monuments, her statues of great dead, 

Her theatres, her noble piles of state, 

Her sacred structures, marble palaces, 

Her glorious ruins on the Acropolis, 

All seem the rich magnificent illusions 
Of an imaginary wonder world. 

There beats the mighty heart of all the realm; 
There statesmen labour wisely, earnestly, 

For conservation of the heritage 

Purchased with patriot blood : there are the great : 

Great in the field, in council, on the wave 

As were the men of old. She stands today 

Unrivalled, mightier far than when alone 

She met the Persian hosts : and Hellas too 

In heartbound unity, domain and power, 

Is far above herself, beyond herself 

[ 105 ] 


MUFFIE’S PROPHECY 


In her olden golden prime. But where are they, 

Supreme philosophers, historians 

And orators, the men of magic power 

Who wrought celestial beauty on a stone 

And gave it real life, the men divine, 

The immortal poets and that poetess 

Who lured the angels down to hear her song? 

Can those return to earth? will they return? 

Mephie 

Well done, my Prophet: now your vision changes 
From that which is to that which is to be 
If powers destructive overbear the realm 
And shape its destiny. What see you, Muffle? 

Mufeie 

Dark scenes of strife and horror fill my vision. 
Athenae seems on fire: through all her ways, 

In all her squares and every vacant place 
Appears a mass of crazed humanity : 

Their phrensy rings in shouts of victory 
And words of death. Within the assembly hall 
A member rises with a bill in hand 
To abolish law and government in Hellas : 

‘ My Brother Speaker and Brother Deputies, 

We put before you on its final passage 
The People’s Bill of Rights and Brotherhood: 
Henceforth no king nor other sovereign power. 
No matter whence derived, however named 
Or justified, shall be allowed in Hellas. 

[ 106 ] 


CONCOURSE V 


The military caste shall cease to be. 

All legal tyranny shall cease to be. 

All masterdom and slavery, all wealth, 

With its two children, poverty and crime, 

All marriage and religion with their mask 
Of deep hypocrisy, their boundless greed, 

Are hereby abrogated in the realm. 

All standing laws and statutes are annulled, 

And future legislation is forbidden. 

Henceforth the Law of Love and Liberty 
Which binds the Brotherhood shall rule in Hellas. 
Our work is done: it is for you to judge. 

And here a few remarks by your committee 
May not be out of place. The bill is brief : 

Unlike the tyrant statutes of the past, 

It needs no explanation : it will guide 
Each brother and sister in all ways of life. 

It is not ours alone: all deputies, 

Except the Arcadians who are absent still, 

Gave freely as we gratefully received: 

But even those, if they should come to us 
And be of us, would not be turned away ; 

And every other who sincerely comes 

Will come to open arms. The Brotherhood, 

Although in principles inflexible, 

Is sympathetic, mild and merciful. 

But while we laboured on our noble task 
Some enemies escaped. The morning sun 
Lighted an empty palace yesterday: 

The king, his ministry and soldiery 

[ 107 ] 


MUFFIE’S PROPHECY 


Had fled the city on the stormy night 
To refuge on the isle of Salamis ; 

And all the ships of war, all merchantmen, 

And all the airships at the king’s command 
Had gone with them. Their plans were deep and wide 
For every merchant vessel in the realm 
Put out to sea the night they stole away. 

What armament they have, what men they have, 
What food they plundered from the public stores 
I cannot tell ; and we may never know. 

All other islands and the main of Hellas, 

And all of Europe too are barred against them : 
They must choose one of two alternatives, 

To die of hunger on that barren isle 
Or go to Asia where they belong: 

Their choice is quite indifferent to us: 

The enemies who brave us to the face 
Demand attention first, and they shall have it: 
Their time has come : our time has come for action ! 
He ceases with reechoing applause. 

The speaker rises, the commotion stills. 

They pass the statute; they adjourn forever, 

And leave the hall with tumult riotous 
To swell the surging, frantic horde without. 

Wilder and wilder yet destruction rages 
In every part. The fearful roar of bombs, 

And shouts resounding even above the roar 
Appal my heart with fury. Over all 
The sacred structures, noble piles of state, 

And great museums with their golden stores 

[ 108 ] 


CONCOURSE V 


Rouse the mad revelry: and when they crash 

The welkin rings with cheers demoniac 

While precious lives are lost : but death’s dark toll 

Is most in churches where the supplicants 

To Heaven are gathered in this dreadful hour; 

But even that is very gentleness 

Beside the terrors of the plains and hills. 

Beyond Athense northward flying bands 

Are pressing toward the mountains, some on beasts, 

Some, fortunate, in cars and carriages; 

But most on foot, in groups and families, 

Many with babes in arms, are toiling on. 

An equal part of all the city host, 

Its furious men and women intermixed, 

Give hot pursuit. The last to fly on foot, 

Soon overtaken in the unequal race, 

Are done to death upon the Attic Plain. 

Fond, fainting mothers pray the foe with tears 
To take their life and spare their little ones: 

The tears prevail upon those flaming hearts 
Like water sprinkled on Vesuvius. 

As on the Attic Plain throughout the realm, 

Save in Arcadia, the deadly work 
Of savagery goes on ; and everywhere 
The Brotherhood divides itself in two. 

In mountain-compassed, bleak Arcadia 
The hardy shepherds rest upon their arms 
Before respecting foes. Prudent as brave, 
Women and children, the infirm and old, 

The beasts of burden and the flocks and herds, 

[ 109 ] 


MUFFLE’S PROPHECY 

Their food and little household property 
They send into the mountain fastnesses 
The while they hold their enemies at bay: 

But elsewhere in this devastated realm 
One only hope inspirits the pursued, 

One mad desire impels pursuing hordes ; 

And as they journey toward the distant heights 
They leave behind their reeking trails of blood. 
Night follows day, and yet the flying bands 
Press on and on until they faint and fall: 

An ominous day succeeds the dreadful night: 
Destruction’s hosts have joined the wild pursuit, 
The trails grow longer, wider, darker still. 

Of all the flying bands but few escape 
Up the high mountain sides : up all but this : 

Even the remnant from Arakhova 

Fled down Parnassus toward Mount Helicon. 

The flight is done, the cruel, close pursuit. 

Night spreads her gloomy pall above the dead. 
The refugees are gone; the Militants 
Retrace their ghastly ways unsatisfied. 

The Arcadian shepherds leave their lower hills 
And scale the loftiest heights while from without 
Destruction’s multitudes are pouring in. 

Mad devastation fills the day’s decline 
And all the lurid night. The morning sun 
Glints over mountains on a dismal waste. 

Upon a balcony in Salamis 
I see the king among his ministry; 

And, facing him upon adjoining grounds 

[ 110 ] 


CONCOURSE V 


His little band of army and marine. 

They greet the king, and he addresses them : 

4 My brave and loyal officers and men, 

In this dark hour I come to you for help ; 

And under Heaven you are my sole support. 

The last defence of civil liberty 
Upon the earth. The realm is desolate: 

Only the favoured ones upon this isle, 

The monks of Athos and some fugitives 
Upon inhospitable mountain heights, 

Escaped the Brotherhood of Anarchy. 

But for the prudence of our ministers 
The holy men had all been massacred. 

A battleship in Hierisos Bay 

Protects Mount Athos from a savage host. 

Two ships at Corinth, one on either side, 

Are driving back the countless multitudes 
Of men and women gathering from the north 
To scourge the Arcadians from their native heights. 
The monks have ample food and some to spare 
For those less fortunate. We have the power 
To hold this isle but food is limited. 

The mountain refugees are destitute. 

All but the Arcadians, and must have relief: 
Relief immediate. It is our task 
To save the little life which yet remains. 

The main of Hellas with the Brotherhoods 
From northern lands has death alone for us. 

Our only hope, if hope there be at all, 

Is in the south and here in Salamis, 

[in] 


MUFFIE’S PROPHECY 


The head and centre of our life and power. 

Our ministers have canvassed every part 
Of southern Hellas; and, in their opinion, 

The plain of Argos, with its fortresses 
Of Palamidi Rock and high Larisa, 

Is most secure for us. Our course is this ; 

Two battleships will clear the Argos Plain 
Till the great holds are fortified. Our fleet 
Will drive the Brotherhood from all Athenag 
And other cities on the southern shore. 

It is our trust to find supplies of food, 

With merchandise and coal for future use 
Buried in Attic and Morean ruins. 

The merchant ships that sail for Nauplia 
Will carry all supplies for Argos Plain, 

With war material of every kind 
And all accessory machinery. 

The time is past for culture of the soil, 

But vineyards will be tended carefully, 

And all their fruit preserved. You have our plan: 

It may be altered as conditions rise: 

But what is done must be without delay 

Or all is lost. Heaven guide us now and ever. 

They cheer the king ; and then, with bare bowed heads, 
They march away in silence and in tears. 

Upon a plain of Salamis near the sea 
Small yachts appear upon light metal wheels 
As prone to take the water: one of them, 

With mighty wings outspread and raised in front, 
Darts like an arrow straight against the wind, 

[ 112 ] 


CONCOURSE V 


And rises from the earth to upper air: 

The wheels are hidden as the vessel rises. 

Each different part, so perfect in itself, 

So harmonised with every other part, 

The vessel seems a monstrous bird in flight 
As it speeds onward toward the iEgean coast. 
Another vessel, rising like the first, 

Goes south and westward over South Morea: 

And one by one, as fast as I can note, 

They shoot toward various regions of the realm. 
To distant peaks where hopeless refugees, 

In hard asylum from relentless foes, 

Wait anxiously for death: freighted with these 
They glide with lightning speed to Salamis. 

Its precious load discharged, with store of food 
Each vessel disappears in upper air: 

And so they come and go till day declines, 

And none are left except the Arcadians. 

Their tottering limbs upheld by friendly hands, 
The fugitives look out upon the change 
While joy and misery gleam through hollow eyes. 
Women are few among the rescued ones: 

Children are very few. The night is past. 

I see two battleships at Nauplia 

With several merchantmen. The Brotherhood 

Have disappeared before their enemies 

The miltary and exploring bands 

Have disembarked. All war materials 

For Palamidi and Larisa heights, 

Tractives of all varieties and powers, 

[ 113 ] 


MUFFIE’S PROPHECY 


The food and all supplies for Argos Plain 
Are rapidly discharged. The exploring force 
Discloses various wealth among the ruins. 

A band of horsemen from Arcadia, 

Guided, protected by the aerial fleet, 

Is now on Argos Plain near Nauplia. 

On trucks and wagons from the merchant ships 
The Arcadians transport the needful stores 
Of war material and machinery, 

With coal supply from Nauplia and Argos, 

To Palamidi and Larisa heights. 

Tractive machines of smaller weight and power 
Are laboured up the steeps by many hands ; 

But on Larisa’s high Acropolis 

The task is far more difficult and slow. 

The battleships have driven the Brotherhoods 
From Pyrgos, Patrae and iEgion ruins. 
Abundant stores of food are found in all 
With coal and merchandise of every kind. 

Under protection of the aerial fleet 

The Arcadian shepherds leave their fastnesses 

In different detachments: older men. 

Women and children, with their flocks and herds 
And other wealth, all go to Argos Plain: 

The younger men with all the beasts of burden 
Go to the ruins or to Salamis. 

A fleet of battleships from Salamis 
Moments ago enters Piraeus Bay. 

The Brotherhood are gathered near the shore, 
And view their ominous visitors with rage 
And loud defiance: these are overlooked. 
[ 114 ] 


CONCOURSE V 


Nearing the base of the Acropolis 
Is a large multitude of men and women 
With bombs and all destructive implements. 

In their first boundless rage the Militants 
Forget the Acropolis in greed for blood; 

And now they march upon a joyful work. 

From all the fleet comes one long thunder roll 
That shakes the Attic Plain from coast to mountains 
It ceases : all that host has disappeared. 

The ships are silent as their dead; and now 
A single shot explodes upon the quay, 

And all the Brotherhood have turned in flight: 
Farther and farther as their distance grows 
Faster and faster peals the deadly roar. 

Beyond Piraeus in the greater city 
The rain of death is all continuous, 

And all extensive too from north to south 
Until, within Athenae’s utmost bounds, 

Not one remains who has the power to fly. 

About the great Cyllene’s northern base 
Appears the death watch of the Brotherhood 
That ever holds at all Arcadian mountains 
Beyond the watch, over his northern slope, 

The aerial fleet is hovering motionless ; 

And still beyond and farther up the height 
I see a band of horsemen, very large, 

Descend the steep behind a guiding ship : 

It leads down Sythus River on the left, 

Right toward the grim death watchers: suddenly 
The fleet darts forward from the mountain side, 
Over the Brotherhood and far above, 

[ US ] 


MUFFIE’S PROPHECY 


Whence with a rain of bombs they rend their foes 
Who battle madly and return the fire 
With wild and futile shots to upper air ; 

But death prevails: the Brotherhood divides: 

The airships too divide and follow them, 

Still keeping up their merciless attack 
Till all have fled and left the way secure. 

A battleship and several merchant ships 
Lie in Lepanto Gulf at Sythus River 
Where the Arcadians are journeying. 

Upon the plain the band rides rapidly 
For time is passing and the way is long. 

The day is done. The guide ship shows her lights ; 
And in the distance toward the north appear 
The brilliant lights upon the battleship, 

And her great searchlight in expansive sweep : 

In the protection of her armament 
The pace grows easier. Upon the gulf 
The merchant ships receive the Arcadian band, 
Horses and men, and with the battleship 
Sail eastward toward the Isthmian Canal. 

The time flies fast upon the Argos Plain: 

The Arcadian families are gathered in: 

Their tents are up and little houses rise 
Where children play about on every side. 

The good Archbishop of Arcadia 
And his subordinates were last to come : 

They do a double work with hands and head. 

The fields lie fallow, but on all the plain 
Orchards and vineyards have incessant care. 
[H6] 


CONCOURSE V 


The grade is done upon the Acropolis, 

And a great engine on strong metal trucks 

Is slowly crawling up its giant side 

Upon the granite hold of Palamidi 

The mightiest tractives, engines and great cranes 

And lofty derricks with extended arms 

Exert their power; and, pendent in the air, 

The heaviest dynamo ascends the steep. 

The merchant ships that were the first to come 
Are leaving Nauplia, all laden deep, 

And others take their place beside the piers. 
From Pyrgos, Patrae and JEgion ruins 
The boundless wealth is all on Salamis. 

Again the laden ships leave Nauplia: 

The two protecting battleships are gone. 

The railway scales Larisa to the crest. 

Upon Larisa and on Palamidi 
The rapid-firing and far-reaching guns 
Command the plain entire: their dominant lights 
Make the night luminous ; and, all deceived, 

Brave chanticleer pours forth his clarion. 

Save in Athenae all is done; and there 
The work goes on. Both animals and men 
Are plentiful among Athenae’s ruins. 

The heavy laden wagons press along ; 

And ample cars, repaired from trolley wrecks, 

All freighted up to full capacity, 

Are drawn upon remaining trolley ways 
From distant ruins to Piraeus Bay. 

The advance is rapid : every moment tells : 

[ 117 ] 


MUFEIE’S PROPHECY 


The delving bands are far upon their way 
From east Athenae to Piraeus border. 

With little intermission day or night 
The laden ships depart for Salamis. 

So great the pressure of abounding stores 
That sailing vessels of a numerous fleet 
Are utilised for transport : laden deep 
These lie in harbour till the stress be passed. 

In Hierisos Bay the battleship 

With difficulty holds in check a host 

That surges toward Mount Athos : near the mountain 

Two merchant ships receive the holy men 

And all their wealth. It is now evident 

The multitude will brave the deadly fire 

And overrun the whole peninsula : 

That is a smaller host: from north to south 
The countless hordes are slowly marching on, 
Eating their loathsome way ; and as they pass 
They make the desolation desolate. 

No food however foul, no living thing 
Is left behind except the carrion birds. 

Their dead receive no prayer, no burial: 

They disappear: and so from day to day 
They swarm along upon their southward course, 
Some toward the Isthmus, some toward Attica. 

Upon the Isthmus two great battleships 
On either side, and rapid-firing cannons 
Upon the south oppose the huge advance: 

And yet so hunger mad, heedless of death 
The mighty horde, the task for all that power 
[ 118 ] 


CONCOURSE V 


But for the obstruction of the waterway 
Had been impossible. Straight through the fire 
Upon both sides and front they drive along: 
Some reach the deep canal and plunge right in 
Where many sink to death: of those who swim 
Quick-firing guns on the Morean bank 
In close array leave not one soul alive: 

And so they surge and break from noon till dark 
In constant phrensied effort: hopeless then 
They take their dreary way toward Attica. 

The hordes now swarm among the Attic ruins 
From east Athenae to Piraeus border 
Five warships hold them back as best they may; 
But crazed and numberless they still advance 
Despite the deadly fire. Safely at last 
The task is done in desolate Athenae. 

The cumbered piers have rendered up their stores. 
The fleet is ready: battleships behind, 
Wind-sailing ships in front, it leaves Piraeus 
While countless myriads of men and women 
In solid mass are packed around the bay; 
Throughout Athenae and all Attica 
They delve and scramble for a little food. 

The Acropolis is safe: their loves and hates 
Are all forgotten in their furious quest. 

The times are passing with continuous change. 
The fruits are gathered upon Argos Plain. 

On Salamis capacious magazines, 

Built of materials from ^Egion ruins, 

Relieve the laden ships ; and ample stores 

[ 119 ] 


MUFFIE’S PROPHECY 


For years are sheltered and arranged for use. 

The Militants who covered Attica 

From north to south now congregate no more: 

The fell disease of famine has appeared, 

And each man flies his brother in distress. 

On all the main the innumerable hordes 
Are dwindling day by day : all plains and vales 
And mountain sides are open sepulchres, 

Reeking and loathsome. Never-sleeping guards, 
And watchful airships ever on the wing 
On all the waters about Salamis 
Protect the island from the doom of death. 

By means unknown Morean Militants 
Are also stricken; and the islands near 
Are visited in ways mysterious ; 

And all life withers in the blighting touch. 
Far-reaching guns on Palamidi’s crest 
And on Larisa’s great Acropolis 
Have swept the enemy from Argos Plain; 

And airships, vigilant and merciless, 

Hold them far out beyond the nearest mountains. 
For only two or three the ready rifle 
Is ever used and never used in vain. 

The lights on Palamidi and Larisa 
Illuminate the plain and heights around. 

The law of cleanliness is absolute: 

Nothing is left to attract the carrion birds 
Lest they be carriers of pestilence. 

The wretched Militants are disappearing 
Like snow before the southern breeze of spring. 
[ 120 ] 


CONCOURSE V 


The moans of dying and the blasphemies 
Of stricken souls resound: and where one falls 
He lies alone forever: so the pest 
Moves on and on till it assails the last, 

And then it dies for want of sustenance. 

A very few survived: not one remains. 

I see no more: the realm is underneath 
A pall of darkness: is my vision done? 

Mephie 

Not done, my Prophet: there is more to come. 
Muffie 

The pall is rifting: it has passed away, 

And all the stricken and the dead are gone. 
Summer is rich with ripening corn and fruit. 
The aerial fleet is larger than before. 

Hellenes who fled from Asian slavery 
To hidden wilds of lofty Caucasus 
Are borne upon its wings to liberty : 

They take the vacant places of the dead: 

The fallen cities are in ruins yet. 

The government remains on Salamis, 

The Arcadians are on their native hills. 

The women, children and the older men 
Do all the work of peace: the younger men 
Are in the fleet or on the Parnes Range 
Fronting the wide extended Moslem host. 

The Moslem fleet is in Lamia Gulf: 

The fleet of Hellas is at Salamis, 

[ 121 ] 


MUFFIE’S PROPHECY 


At the Piraeus and in Patrae Gulf. 

Past rivers, vales and lofty mountain chains, 
In southern course, the host of Ottoman 
Moves on with labour arduous and slow 
To reach the Yale of Springs : his fleet appears 
Rounding the stormy height of Sunion. 

To escape destruction absolute and sure 
The patriot army from its mountain base 
Retires upon the Isthmian Canal; 

And firmly there, on the Morean side, 

It makes its desperate stand for liberty. 

The Moslem army is at Corinth Gulf 
Upon the north, before the waterway 
And patriotic force; the Moslem fleet 
Is marshalled near it in iEgina Gulf, 

The fleet of Hellas in Cenchrese Bay 
Guards the canal and fronts the hostile fleet. 

It is the time : the guns of Ottoman 
Burst forth in yet increasing thunder roll, 

And all the lines where Hellas lies intrenched 
Are deeply rent but silent as their dead. 

The Moslem fleet is far superior 

In weight and numbers, but the fleet of Hellas 

Opposes greater skill to greater power. 

A large half moon with wide extended wings 
The hostile fleet bears on to the attack: 

Its bolts fly true and fast. I can but feel 
A deep foreboding and my spirit sinks : 

Already one great battleship rides low 
YVhile Moslem thunders echo: suddenly 
[ 122 ] 


CONCOURSE V 


They are unheard though still continuous: 

All drowned by one reverberating roar 
That shakes the very mountains on their base. 
I see the Moslem battleships go down, 
Helpless before a power invincible ; 

And now I see them fly without restraint ; 

But while they go destruction follows them. 
Acro-Corinthus on his mountain crest 
Bears the great cannons and selected men 
That saved the fleet of Hellas : now they rest ; 
But from all batteries facing Ottoman, 

And all the warships in the fleet of Hellas 
Comes one terrific peal; and Ottoman, 

With all the unyielding bravery of his race, 
Replies in deadly thunder to his foes: 

And so the battle rages north and south 
For subjugation and for liberty. 

The aerial fleet is over Ottoman: 

Two other airships from the distant east 
Approach the fleet ; and at the stern of each 
I see the radiant banner of Japan 
And Moslem crescent floating side by side. 

On salutation by the stranger ships 
The Hellene fleet darts off to Salamis. 

Alone in upper air the ships descend 
In graceful circles, one to Ottoman 
And one to Hellas near the high command 
Received with courtesy the ambassadors 
Present their message to the hostile powers : 
The rage of battle and the cannon’s roar 
[ 123 ] 


MUFFIE’S PROPHECY 


Resound no more upon the Isthmian plain. 

The carnage done, in their aerial ships 
The envoys haste upon their embassage. 

At Salamis the House of Government 
Is decked with royal banners of Japan, 

Hellas and Ottoman: king and ministry 
Are all in session: the ambassadors 
Of Moslem and J apan are there with them : 

Japan’s ambassador addresses them: 

6 Your Majesty and Ministers, I rise 
To put before you, briefly as I may, 

This opportunity for lasting peace 
Between the realms of Ottoman and Hellas. 

A word of explanation: In Japan 
Are remnants of the European realms 
In different parts under Japan’s protection; 

But as their numbers grew they longed and mourned 
For home beneath their European skies : 

Then our good emperor compassioned them 
And promised them a home on Balkan lands 
Beside the realm of Hellas. Ottoman, 

With pleasant memories of better days, 

Sent forth his powers to repossess those lands 
Before Japan’s great purpose was disclosed. 

Japan at once appealed to him, and he, 

With royal friendship and nobility, 

Upon conditions honourable to him, 

Promised relinquishment of all those lands 
For stranger peoples and the realm of Hellas: 

That promise holds: Japan and Ottoman 
[ 124 ] 


CONCOURSE V 


Never renigue nor disavow a pledge. 

My friend, the ambassador from Ottoman, 

Is here with ample power to sign a pact 
Of peace and friendship with the realm of Hellas. 
If you accept the terms he will impose, 

Which he and I deem just and liberal, 

You will have peace, Japan too will be free 
To execute his generous designs. 

He seats himself : the king gives quick reply : 

The things Japan approves Hellas will do 
If in the utmost limit of her power. 

The Moslem envoy rises in response: 

6 Your Majesty, your answer to my friend 
Gives me the greatest pleasure : it insures 
A lasting peace between our hostile realms, 

The war began against my own advice. 

The little realm of Hellas is alone 
In Europe’s wide domain victorious 
Over the bloody hordes of Anarchy; 

And so I honour her and wish her well. 

When we were hard beset on every side 
By many enemies combined against us 
Japan, our true friend, interposed for us 
With mighty power, and forced our enemies 
To grant triumphant honourable peace : 

And when that noble friend appealed for you 
I knew he would not, could not be refused; 

And I am here with full authority 

To sign the pact of peace between our realms. 

These are our terms conditional to peace : 

[ 125 ] 


MUFFIE’S PROPHECY 


The realm of Hellas shall make restitution 
To Ottoman of ten good battleships 
For those destroyed ; further, the realm of Hellas 
Shall grant the use of her large merchant fleet 
For transportation of his troops and stores: 

If you comply an honourable treaty 
Will be completed now ; and I shall sign it 
Upon the happiest moment of my life . 5 
With instant fervour on his final word 
Hellas accepts the terms conditional, 

And signs the precious pact with Ottoman. 

Now all is changed : the desperate deadly war 
That rent the realm has passed away, and peace, 
With all prosperity and happiness, 

With all her loves and sweet amenities, 

Has come to bless the land. Old foes are friends, 
And give the helpful hand of fellowship. 

The Moslem fleet and merchant fleet of Hellas 
Are in Cenchreae Bay. With all despatch, 

And all assistance and facility 
Rendered by Hellas, Moslem troops and stores 
Are put on board the ships. The laden fleets 
Are sailing toward the City Beautiful. 

I saw them go : I see them come and go 
Till Ottoman disappears; and all the while 
The aerial fleets of Hellas and Japan 
Are ever on the wing between those realms, 
Bringing descendants of the nations dead 
To European homes of noble hope. 

Without delay the merchant fleet of Hellas 

[ 126 ] 


CONCOURSE V 


Sails south and eastward through Suez Canal, 
Past Ottoman’s Egyptian colony 
And southern Asia to far Japan: 

Thence deep with anxious peoples and their wealth 
The fleet returns upon its westward course: 

To anchorage upon the Balkan shores: 

And so it comes again and yet again 
Bearing the exiles from the Asian world 
To happier homes in European climes. 

Japan’s ambassador has set the place 
And bounds of every people so that each 
May have its independent government, 

Its country, name and language on the earth. 
Russia’s contingent, largest far of all, 

Is at Byzantium and the region round. 

The different peoples of the infant states 
Are prosperous through every toilsome year. 

I see their generations come and go 
With still increasing power and majesty: 

I see the noble cities rise from ruins: 

Athens too, more glorious than before. 

The Asiatic masters and their slaves 
Are driven far away on every side 
As little nations grow to sovereign realms. 

War clouds are gathering on the eastern coast: 
Byzantium, the Queen on Bosphorus, 

Attracts the wistful eye of Ottoman. 

Japan, at war with several mighty powers, 
Affords propitious opportunity 
To gratify his dominant desire. 

[ 127 ] 


MUFFIE’S PROPHECY 


His navy, second to Japan’s alone, 

Spans all the ^Egean near Gallipoli; 

His army, facing the great waterway, 

Sends forth reverberating powers of death 
From Asian to European plains. 

The Moslem battleships advance in line 
From north to south upon the Hellespont: 

The aerial fleet above the Moslem army 
Circles in silence: all the northern shore 
Of Hellespont is ominous and still. 

Now all at once from all the Balkan front 
Comes one continuous, tremendous blast 
That drowns the Moslem roar on land and sea. 
And shakes the distant shores of Marmora. 

The mightiest battleships of Ottoman 
Are helpless all before the Balkan power : 

With every little moment some great ship 
Is lurching, plunging helpless to its doom. 

The fleet is gone : a part is out to sea : 

The rest, the most, have gone below the waves. 
The fleet away the fire miraculous 
Is turned amain upon the Moslem host. 

I see the swaths of death cut far and wide 
Through all the long deep ranks of Ottoman: 

I see his dwindling force refuse to fly 
From hopeless battle : now I see them fly, 

But all too late : their numbers dwindle still 
Till little groups and solitary men, 

Unarmed and wildered, groping toward the south, 
Alone are left of all the Moslem host. 

[ 128 ] 


CONCOURSE V 


The thunder ceases with the setting sun. 

The Balkan battle fleet from Marmora 
Lies on the Asian side of Hellespont: 

The Balkan transport fleet that followed fast 
Is gathered on the European side, 

Two days have passed, and all the Balkan force 
With armament is on the Moslem plain 
To wrench reprisal from its enemy. 

I see the swift, hard march. The siege is laid; 
And Ottoman, helpless in his capital, 

Accepts conditions of the Balkan powers : 

He cedes a zone extending southward far 
From all the waterway and great Black Sea, 
With all of Egypt and Suez Canal, 

To hold forever; and the war is done. 

As generations pass with lapse of time 
The Balkan states increase till one great hope, 
One will to hold their primal lands again, 
Inspires them all. The Sea of Marmora, 
Besides a great protecting battle fleet, 

Is covered by a countless transport fleet 
Bearing an army for the British Isles 
To reposses their ancient Island Realm. 

My vision changes : lands have disappeared 
On every side ; and I can only see 
The realm of Hellas as it was at first. 

Mephie 

It is enough, my Prophet. You have seen 
The infinite horrors and the desolation 
[ 129 ] 


MUFEIE’S PROPHECY 


Which must occur if the destructive powers 
Acquire ascendency upon the earth; 

And you have seen the slow and painful rise 
Of man from depths of hopeless misery: 

And what you saw, the world itself will see 
If Heaven avert it not. Proclaim your visions 
At once, at large that men may be forewarned, 
And they may never be realities. 

Leora, dear, a song before we part: 

Sing us a love song in your happy vein. 

Leora 

(Singing) 

(1) . 

She lives again: my heart is glad today: 

On deeds of hers the sun of victory smiles ; 
Pagans from all her mountains, vales and isles 
Reecho far away. 

( 2 ) 

So meek she seemed: I thought her spirit dead: 
She only moaned and shed appealing tears 
While cruel tyrannies of countless years 
Rested upon her head. 

( 3 ) 

She made no sign when over holy graves, 

And storied fields that saw her great ones dying, 
That bore her mighty charge, the Persian flying, 
Strange Ottoman drove the slaves. 

[ 130 ] 


CONCOURSE V 


( 4 ) 

Despairing, desperate, at last she rose, 

But, tottering, was able scarce to stand; 

The weapon, trembling in her palsied hand, 

Fell harmless on her foes. 

(5) 

I saw their gathering blows descend like rain; 

I saw her life blood stream from every part; 

I saw the metal pierce her very heart, 

And yet she was not slain. 

( 6 ) 

She stood at bay beside the ominous pyre : 

Their fury grew with every labouring breath; 
But all the fearful, fateful powers of death 
Renewed her strength and fire. 

(7) 

The immortal closed: the circling cordon broke: 
They saw her spirit and they felt her might: 
The haughty alien lords are turned in flight, 
Reeling beneath her stroke. 

( 8 ) 

From slavery to glory ; but where meet 
The Orient and Occident she stands 
Alone: the children of her sister lands 
Are fettered hands and feet. 

[ 131 ] 


MUFFIE’S PFtOPHECY 


(9) 

tThese follow her, their beacon star and guide, 
Through ways of death where freedom’s battle rages 
Till galling gyves and manacles of ages 
Are rent and cast aside. 

( 10 ) 

Again the Moslem rage and high desire; 

Again I hear the martial tramp of men; 

The mortal enemies have closed again; 

The land is all on fire. 

(ii) 

I see her charge on many a bloody field, 

On fiery citadel and rocky hold; 

I see the wavering crescent backward rolled; 

I see the tyrant yield. 


( 12 ) 

She took no rest: her children ever bled: 
And there is glory’s emblem far and wide, 
In every vale, on plain and mountain side, 
Floating above her dead. 

( 13 ) 

The fateful day: the peoples hear the call: 
Her heart is true; her banner is unfurled 
For man and liberty throughout the world: 
Her king is deaf to all. 

[ 132 ] 


CONCOURSE V 


( 14 ) 

He lives in servitude to die in shame : 

Let all reward that infamy can bring, 

The ignominy of a traitor king, 

Rest ever on his name. 

( 15 ) 

O Hellas mine ! my loved ! your light of old 
Was but the gleam of morning just begun: 

The full effulgence of your midday sun 
Is yet unseen, untold. 

Mephie 

Accept our thanks, Leora, for your song: 

Great and appropriate to time and place. 

My Prophet dear, we are about to part, 

But not forever: we shall meet again, 

And you will know it though you see us not 
As surely as you know our presence here. 

Leora 

Farewell, my Muffle, with a woman’s love. 

The Finto 

Farewell, my Poet, with a poet’s love. 

Muffie 

My Master dear, and you, my dearest Friends, 
My heart is full! with fondest love, farewell! 
[ 133 ] 


MUFFIE’S PROPHECY 


Mephie 

Muffle, my Prophet, sit beside me here, 

And lay your head once more upon my breast. 

(Muffle sits beside Mephie and lays his head upon 
Mephie’s bosom.) 

Farewell, my Prophet, with an angel’s love. 

(Muffle sleeps. Darkness overspreads Parnassus and 
all the realm of Hellas. The darkness is dissipated. 
Mephie, The Finto and Leora have disappeared. Muffle 
lies sleeping under a pine near the ocean. Muffle wakes.) 

Muffie 

They are not gone: I feel their presence yet; 

Their gentle, firm support. The sweet loved voices 
Whisper of sacred duty to be done. 


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